A  JOURNAL  OF 
IMPRESSIONS 
•MN  BELGIUM  •:• 

MAY     SINCLAIR 


I    LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

1       SAN  DIEGO 


A  JOURNAL  OF 
IMPRESSIONS  IN  BELGIUM 


^CMILLAN  COMPANY 

K  •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


A  JOURNAL  OF 
IMPRESSIONS  IN  BELGIUM 


BY 


MAY  SINCLAIR 

Author  of  "The  Three  Sisters,"  "The  Return  of 
.  •  I      ».Tfc»  Prodigal,"  etc. 


tf ork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1915 

^4//  rights  reserved 


JHT^  1914  H     >•  (.'    ' 

SINCLAIR 


Set  op  and  eltcfbr-'r  ed.'     Publi^^L,  September,  1915 


••••••-. 

•  « •••.*•  .\i  - 

•/•*•• :  /••::•:  '..V-.1 


DEDICATION 
(To  a  Field  Ambulance  in  Flanders} 

I  do  not  call  you  comrades, 

You, 

Who  did  what  I  only  dreamed. 

Though  you  have  taken  my  dream, 

And  dressed  yourselves  in  its  beauty  and  its  glory, 

Your  faces  are  turned  aside  as  you  pass  by. 

I  am  nothing  to  you, 

For  I  have  done  no  more  than  dream. 

Your  faces  are  like  the  face  of  her  whom  you  follow, 

Danger, 

The  Beloved  who  looks  backward  as  she  runs,  calling 

to  her  lovers, 
The  Huntress  who  flies  before  her  quarry,  trailing  her 

lure. 

She  called  to  me  from  her  battle-places, 
She  flung  before  me  the  curved  lightning  of  her  shells 

for  a  lure; 

And  when  I  came  within  sight  of  her, 
She  turned  aside, 
And  hid  her  face  from  me. 

But  you  she  loved ; 

You  she  touched  with  her  hand; 

For  you  the  white  flames  of  her  feet  stayed  in  their 

running ; 
She  kept  you  with  her  in  her  fields  of  Flanders, 


DEDICATION 

Where  you  go, 

Gathering  your  wounded  from  among  her  dead. 

Grey  night  falls  on  your  going  and  black  night  on  your 

returning. 
You  go 
Under  the  thunder  of  the  guns,  the  shrapnel's  rain  and 

the  curved  lightning  of  the  shells, 
And  where  the  high  towers  are  broken, 
And  houses  crack  like  the  staves  of  a  thin  crate  filled 

with  fire ; 
Into  the  mixing  smoke  and  dust  of  roof  and  walls  torn 

asunder 
You  go ; 
And  only  my  dream  follows  you. 

That  is  why  I  do  not  speak  of  you, 

Calling  you  by  your  names. 

Your  names  are  strung  with  the  names  of  ruined  and 

immortal  cities, 
Termonde   and  Antwerp,   Dixmude   and  Ypres   and 

Furnes, 
Like  jewels  on  one  chain  — 

Thus, 

In  the  high  places  of  Heaven, 

They  shall  tell  all  your  names. 

MAY  SINCLAIR. 
March  8th,  1915. 


INTRODUCTION 

THIS  is  a  "  Journal  of  Impressions,"  and  it  is  noth- 
ing more.  It  will  not  satisfy  people  who  want  ac- 
curate and  substantial  information  about  Belgium,  or 
about  the  War,  or  about  Field  Ambulances  and  Hos- 
pital Work,  and  do  not  want  to  see  any  of  these  things 
"across  a  temperament."  For  the  Solid  Facts  and 
the  Great  Events  they  must  go  to  such  books  as  Mr. 
E.  A.  Powell's  "  Fighting  in  Flanders,"  or  Mr.  Frank 
Fox's  "  The  Agony  of  Belgium,"  or  Dr.  H.  S.  Sout- 
tar's  "  A  Surgeon  in  Belgium,"  or  "  A  Woman's  Ex- 
periences in  the  Great  War,"  by  Louise  Mack. 

For  many  of  these  impressions  I  can  claim  only  a 
psychological  accuracy;  some  were  insubstantial  to 
the  last  degree,  and  very  few  were  actually  set  down 
there  and  then,  on  the  spot,  as  I  have  set  them  down 
here.  This  is  only  a  Journal  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  record 
of  days,  as  faithful  as  I  could  make  it  in  every  detail, 
and  as  direct  as  circumstances  allowed.  But  circum- 
stances seldom  did  allow,  and  I  was  always  behind- 
hand with  my  Journal  —  a  week  behind  with  the  first 
day  of  the  seventeen,  four  months  behind  with  the  last. 

This  was  inevitable.  For  in  the  last  week  of  the 
Siege  of  Antwerp,  when  the  wounded  were  being 
brought  into  Ghent  by  hundreds,  and  when  the  fighting 
came  closer  and  closer  to  the  city,  and  at  the  end,  when 
the  Germans  were  driving  you  from  Ghent  to  Bruges, 
and  from  Bruges  to  Ostend  and  from  Ostend  to  Dun- 


INTRODUCTION 

kirk,  you  could  not  sit  down  to  write  your  impressions, 
even  if  you  were  cold-blooded  enough  to  want  to.  It 
was  as  much  as  you  could  do  to  scribble  the  merest 
note  of  what  happened  in  your  Day-Book. 

But  when  you  had  made  fast  each  day  with  its  note, 
your  impressions  were  safe,  far  safer  than  if  you  had 
tried  to  record  them  in  their  flux  as  they  came.  How- 
ever far  behind  I  might  be  with  my  Journal,  it  was 
kept.  It  is  not  written  "  up,"  or  round  and  about  the 
original  notes  in  my  Day-Book,  it  is  simply  written  out. 
Each  day  of  the  seventeen  had  its  own  quality  and  was 
soaked  in  its  own  atmosphere ;  each  had  its  own  unique 
and  incorruptible  memory,  and  the  slight  lapse  of  time, 
so  far  from  dulling  or  blurring  that  memory,  crystal- 
lized it  and  made  it  sharp  and  clean.  And  in  writing 
out  I  have  been  careful  never  to  go  behind  or  beyond 
the  day,  never  to  add  anything,  but  to  leave  each  mo- 
ment as  it  was.  I  have  set  down  the  day's  imperfect 
or  absurd  impression,  in  all  its  imperfection  or  absurd- 
ity, and  the  day's  crude  emotion  in  all  its  crudity, 
rather  than  taint  its  reality  with  the  discreet  reflections 
that  came  after. 

I  make  no  apology  for  my  many  errors  —  where 
they  were  discoverable  I  have  corrected  them  in  a  foot- 
note; to  this  day  I  do  not  know  how  wildly  wrong  I 
may  have  been  about  kilometres  and  the  points  of  the 
compass,  and  the  positions  of  batteries  and  the  move- 
ments of  armies ;  but  there  were  other  things  of  which 
I  was  dead  sure ;  and  this  record  has  at  least  the  value 
of  a  "  human  document." 

There  is  one  question  that  I  may  be  asked :  "  Why, 
when  you  had  the  luck  to  go  out  with  a  Field  Am- 


INTRODUCTION 

bulance  Corps  distinguished  by  its  gallantry  —  why 
in  heaven's  name  have  you  not  told  the  story  of  its 
heroism  ? " 

Well  —  I  have  not  told  it  for  several  excellent  rea- 
sons. When  I  set  out  to  keep  a  Journal  I  pledged 
myself  to  set  down  only  what  I  had  seen  or  felt,  and 
to  avoid  as  far  as  possible  the  second-hand ;  and  it  was 
my  misfortune  that  I  saw  very  little  of  the  field-work 
of  the  Corps.  Besides,  the  Corps  itself  was  then  in  its 
infancy,  and  it  is  its  infancy  —  its  irrepressible,  half- 
irresponsible,  whole  engaging  infancy  —  that  I  have 
touched  here.  After  those  seventeen  days  at  Ghent 
it  grew  up  in  all  conscience.  It  was  at  Fumes  and 
Dixmude  and  La  Panne,  after  I  had  left  it,  that  its 
most  memorable  deeds  were  done.* 

And  this  story  of  the  Corps  is  not  mine  to  tell.  Part 
of  it  has  been  told  already  by  Dr.  Souttar,  and  part  by 
Mr.  Philip  Gibbs,  and  others.  The  rest  is  yet  to  come. 

M.S. 

July  I5th,  1915. 

*  See  Postscript. 


A  JOURNAL  OF 
IMPRESSIONS  IN  BELGIUM 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS 

IN  BELGIUM 

[September  2$th,  1914.] 

AFTER  the  painful  births  and  deaths  of  I  don't 
know  how  many  committees,  after  six  weeks' 
struggling  with  something  we  imagined  to  be 
Red  Tape,  which  proved  to  be  the  combined  egoism 
of  several  persons  all  desperately  anxious  to  "  get 
to  the  Front,"  and  desperately  afraid  of  somebody 
else  getting  there  too,  and  getting  there  first,  we 
are  actually  off.  Impossible  to  describe  the  mys- 
terious processes  by  which  we  managed  it.  I  think 
the  War  Office  kicked  us  out  twice,  and  the  Ad- 
miralty once,  though  what  we  were  doing  with  the 
Admiralty  I  don't  to  this  day  understand.  The 
British  Red  Cross  kicked  us  steadily  all  the  time, 
on  general  principles;  the  American  snubbed  us 
rather  badly;  what  the  French  said  to  us  I  don't  re- 
member, and  I  can't  think  that  we  carried  persist- 
ency so  far  as  to  apply  to  the  Russian  and  the  Japa- 
nese. Many  of  our  scheme  perished  in  their  own 
vagueness.  Others,  vivid  and  adventurous,  were 

i 


2.        A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

checked  by  the  first  encounter  with  the  crass  reality. 
At  one  time,  I  remember,  we  were  to  have  sent  out 
a  detachment  of  stalwart  Amazons  in  khaki  breeches 
who  were  to  dash  out  on  to  the  battle-field,  recon- 
noitre, and  pick  up  the  wounded  and  carry  them 
away  slung  over  their  saddles.  The  only  difficulty 
was  to  get  the  horses.  But  the  author  of  the 
scheme  —  who  had  bought  her  breeches  —  had  al- 
lowed for  that.  The  horses  were  to  be  caught  on 
the  battle-field;  as  the  wounded  and  dead  dropped 
from  their  saddles  the  Amazons  were  to  leap  into 
them  and  ride  off.  On  this  system  "  remounts " 
were  also  to  be  supplied.  Whenever  a  horse  was 
shot  dead  under  its  rider,  an  Amazon  was  to  dash 
up  with  another  whose  rider  had  been  shot  dead. 
It  was  all  perfectly  simple  and  only  needed  a  little 
"  organization."  For  four  weeks  the  lure  of  the 
battle-field  kept  our  volunteers  dancing  round  the 
War  Office  and  the  Red  Cross  Societies,  and  for 
four  weeks  their  progress  to  the  Front  was  frus- 
trated by  Lord  Kitchener.  Some  dropped  off  dis- 
heartened, but  others  came  on,  and  a  regenerated 
committee  dealt  with  them.  Finally  the  thing  crys- 
tallized into  a  Motor  Ambulance  Corps.  An  awful 
sanity  came  over  the  committee,  chastened  by  its 
sufferings,  and  the  volunteers,  under  pressure,  defi- 
nitely renounced  the  battle-field. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM         3 

Then  somebody  said,  "  Let's  help  the  Belgian 
refugees."  From  that  moment  our  course  was 
clear.  Everybody  was  perfectly  willing  that  we 
should  help  the  refugees,  provided  we  relinquished 
all  claim  on  the  wounded.  The  Belgian  Legation 
was  enchanted.  It  gave  passports  to  a  small  pri- 
vate commission  of  inquiry  under  our  Commandant 
to  go  out  to  Belgium  and  send  in  a  report.  At  Os- 
tend  the  commission  of  inquiry  whittled  itself  down 
to  the  one  energetic  person  who  had  taken  it  out. 
And  before  we  knew  where  we  were  our  Ambulance 
Corps  was  accepted  by  the  Belgian  Red  Cross. 

Only  we  had  not  got  the  ambulances. 

And  though  we  had  got  some  money,  we  had  not 
got  enough.  This  was  really  our  good  luck,  for  it 
saved  us  from  buying  the  wrong  kind  of  motor  am- 
bulance car.  But  at  first  the  blow  staggered  us. 
Then,  by  some  abrupt,  incalculable  turn  of  destiny, 
the  British  Red  Cross,  which  had  kicked  us  so  per- 
sistently, came  to  our  help  and  gave  us  all  the  am- 
bulances we  wanted. 

And  we  are  off. 

There  are  thirteen  of  us:  The  Commandant, 
and  Dr.  Haynes  and  Dr.  Bird  under  him ;  and  Mrs. 
Torrence,  a  trained  nurse  and  midwife,  who  can 
drive  a  motor  car  through  anything,  and  take  it  to 
bits  and  put  it  together  again ;  Janet  McNeil,  also  an 


4        A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

expert  motorist,  and  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs. 
Lambert,  Red  Cross  emergency  nurses;  Mr.  Grier- 
son,  Mr.  Foster  and  Mr.  Riley,  stretcher-bearers, 
and  two  chauffeurs  and  me.  I  don't  know  where  I 
come  in.  But  they've  called  me  the  Secretary  and 
Reporter,  which  sounds  very  fine,  and  I  am  to  keep 
the  accounts  (Heaven  help  them!)  and  write  the 
Commandant's  reports,  and  toss  off  articles  for  the 
daily  papers,  to  make  a  little  money  for  the  Corps. 
We've  got  some  already,  raised  by  the  Comman- 
dant's Report  and  Appeal  that  we  published  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph  and  Dally  Chronicle.  I  shall  never 
forget  how  I  sprinted  down  Fleet  Street  to  get  it 
in  in  time,  four  days  before  we  started. 

And  we  have  landed  at  Ostend. 

I'll  confess  now  that  I  dreaded  Ostend  more  than 
anything.  We  had  been  told  that  there  were  hor- 
rors upon  horrors  in  Ostend.  Children  were  being 
born  in  the  streets,  and  the  state  of  the  bathing- 
machines  where  the  refugees  lived  was  unspeakable. 
I  imagined  the  streets  of  Ostend  crowded  with 
refugee  women  bearing  children,  and  the  Digue 
covered  with  the  horrific  bathing-machines.  On 
the  other  hand,  Ostend  was  said  to  be  the  safest 
spot  in  Europe.  No  Germans  there.  No  Zeppelins. 
No  bombs. 

And  we  found  the  bathing-machines  planted  out 


A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM        '5 

several  miles  from  the  town,  almost  invisible  specks 
on  a  vanishing  shore-line.  The  refugees  we  met 
walking  about  the  streets  of  Ostend  were  in  fairly 
good  case  and  bore  themselves  bravely.  But  the 
town  had  been  bombarded  the  night  before  and  our 
hotel  had  been  the  object  of  very  special  attentions. 
We  chose  it  (the  "Terminus  ")  because  it  lay  close 
to  the  landing-stage  and  saved  us  the  trouble  of 
going  into  the  town  to  look  for  quarters.  It  was 
under  the  same  roof  as  the  railway  station,  where 
we  proposed  to  leave  our  ambulance  cars  and  heavy 
luggage.  And  we  had  no  difficulty  whatever  in  get- 
ting rooms  for  the  whole  thirteen  of  us.  There  was 
no  sort  of  competition  for  rooms  in  that  hotel. 
I  said  to  myself,  "If  Ostend  ever  is  bombarded, 
this  railway  station  will  be  the  first  to  suffer.  And 
the  hotel  and  the  railway  station  are  one."  And 
when  I  was  shown  into  a  bedroom  with  glass  win- 
dows all  along  its  inner  wall  and  a  fine  glass  front 
looking  out  on  to  the  platforms  under  the  immense 
glass  roof  of  the  station,  I  said,  "  If  this  hotel 
is  ever  bombarded,  what  fun  it  will  be  for  the  per- 
son who  sleeps  in  this  bed  between  these  glass  win- 
dows." 

We  were  all  rather  tired  and  hungry  as  we  met 
for  dinner  at  seven  o'clock.  And  when  we  were 
told  that  all  lights  would  be  put  out  in  the  town 


6        A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

at  eight-thirty  we  only  thought  that  a  municipality 
which  was  receiving  all  the  refugees  in  Belgium 
must  practise  some  economy,  and  that,  anyway,  an 
hour  and  a  half  was  enough  for  anybody  to  dine 
in;  and  we  hoped  that  the  Commandant,  who  had 
gone  to  call  on  the  English  chaplain  at  the  Grand 
Hotel  Littoral,  would  find  his  way  back  again  to 
the  peaceful  and  commodious  shelter  of  the  "  Ter- 
minus." 

He  did  find  his  way  back,  at  seven-thirty,  just 
in  time  to  give  us  a  chance  of  clearing  out,  if  we 
chose  to  take  it.  The  English  chaplain,  it  seemed, 
was  surprised  and  dismayed  at  our  idea  of  a  suit- 
able hotel,  and  he  implored  us  to  fly,  instantly,  be- 
fore a  bomb  burst  in  among  us  (this  was  the  first 
we  had  heard  of  the  bombardment  of  the  night  be- 
fore). The  Commandant  put  it  to  us  as  we  sat 
there:  Whether  would  we  leave  that  dining-room 
at  once  and  pack  our  baggage  all  over  again,  and 
bundle  out,  and  go  hunting  for  rooms  all  through 
Ostend  with  the  lights  out,  and  perhaps  fall  into  the 
harbour;  or  stay  where  we  were  and  risk  the  off- 
chance  of  a  bomb  ?  And  we  were  all  very  tired  and 
hungry,  and  we  had  only  got  to  the  soup,  and  we 
had  seen  (and  smelt)  the  harbour,  so  we  said  we'd 
stay  where  we  were  and  risk  it. 


A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM         7 

And  we  stayed.     A  Taube  hovered  over  us  and 
never  dropped  its  bomb. 


[Saturday,  26th.] 

WHEN  we  compared  notes  the  next  morning  we 
found  that  we  had  all  gone  soundly  to  sleep,  too 
tired  to  take  the  Taube  seriously,  all  except  our  two 
chauffeurs,  who  were  downright  annoyed  because  no 
bomb  had  entered  their  bedroom.  Then  we  all  went 
out  and  looked  at  the  little  hole  in  the  roof  of  the 
fish  market,  and  the  big  hole  in  the  hotel  garden, 
and  thought  of  bombs  as  curious  natural  phenomena 
that  never  had  and  never  would  have  any  intimate 
connection  with  us. 

And  for  five  weeks,  ever  since  I  knew  that  I  must 
certainly  go  out  with  this  expedition,  I  had  been 
living  in  black  funk;  in  shameful  and  appalling 
terror.  Every  night  before  I  went  to  sleep  I  saw 
an  interminable  spectacle  of  horrors:  trunks  with- 
out heads,  heads  without  trunks,  limbs  tangled  in. 
intestines,  corpses  by  every  roadside,  murders,  mu- 
tilations, my  friends  shot  dead  before  my  eyes. 
Nothing  I  shall  ever  see  will  be  more  ghastly  than 
the  things  I  have  seen.  And  yet,  before  a  possibly- 
to-be-bombarded  Ostend  this  strange  visualizing 


8         A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

process  ceases,  and  I  see  nothing  and  feel  nothing. 
Absolutely  nothing ;  until  suddenly  the  Commandant 
announces  that  he  is  going  into  the  town,  by  him- 
self, to  buy  a  hat,  and  I  get  my  first  experience  of 
real  terror. 

For  the  hats  that  the  Commandant  buys  when  he 
is  by  himself  —  there  are  no  words  for  them. 

This  morning  the  Corps  begins  to  realize  its  need 
of  discipline.  First  of  all,  our  chauffeurs  have  dis- 
appeared and  can  nowhere  be  found.  The  motor 
ambulances  languish  in  inactivity  on  Cockerill's 
Wharf.  We  find  one  chauffeur  and  set  him  to  keep 
guard  over  a  tin  of  petrol.  We  know  the  am- 
bulances can't  start  till  heaven  knows  when,  and 
so,  first  Mrs.  Lambert,  our  emergency  nurse,  then, 
I  regret  to  say,  our  Secretary  and  Reporter  make 
off  and  sneak  into  the  Cathedral.  We  are  only  ten 
minutes,  but  still  we  are  away,  and  Mrs.  Torrence, 
our  trained  nurse,  is  ready  for  us  when  we  come 
back.  We  are  accused  bitterly  of  sight-seeing. 
(We  had  betrayed  the  inherent  levity  of  our  nature 
the  day  before,  on  the  boat,  when  we  looked  at  the 
sunset.)  Then  the  Secretary  and  Reporter,  utterly 
intractable,  wanders  forth  ostensibly  to  look  for  the 
Commandant,  who  has  disappeared,  but  really  to 
get  a  sight  of  the  motor  ambulances  on  .Cockerill's 
Wharf.  And  Mrs.  Torrence  is  ready  again  for  the 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM        9 

Secretary,  convicted  now  of  sight-seeing.  And  I 
have  seen  no  Commandant,  and  no  motor  ambu- 
lances and  no  wharf.  (Unbearable  thought,  that  I 
may  never,  absolutely  never,  see  Cockerill's  Wharf !) 
It  is  really  awful  this  time,  because  the  President  of 
the  Belgian  Red  Cross  is  waiting  to  get  the  thirteen 
of  us  to  the  Town  Hall  to  have  our  passports  vises. 
And  the  Commandant  is  rounding  up  his  Corps,  and 
Ursula  Dearmer  is  heaven  knows  where,  and  Mrs. 
Lambert  only  somewhere  in  the  middle  distance, 
and  Mrs.  Torrence's  beautiful  eyes  are  blazing  at 
the  slip-sloppiness  of  it  all.  Things  were  very 

different  at  the  Hospital,  where  she  was 

trained. 

Only  the  President  remains  imperturbable. 

For,  after  all  this  fuming  and  fretting,  the  Presi- 
dent isn't  quite  ready  himself,  or  perhaps  the  Town 
Hall  isn't  ready,  and  we  all  stroll  about  the  streets 
of  Ostend  for  half  an  hour.  And  the  Commandant 
goes  off  by  himself,  to  buy  that  hat. 

It  is  a  terrible  half -hour.  But  after  all,  he  comes 
back  without  it,  judging  it  better  to  bear  the  ills  he 
has. 

Very  leisurely,  and  with  an  immense  consumption 
of  time,  we  stroll  and  get  photographed  for  our  pass- 
ports. Then  on  to  the  Town  Hall,  and  then  to  the 
Military  Depot  for  our  Laissez-passer,  and  then  to 


IO      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

the  Hotel  Terminus  for  lunch.  And  at  one-thirty 
we  are  off. 

Whatever  happens,  whatever  we  see  and  suffer, 
nothing  can  take  from  us  that  run  from  Ostend  to 
Ghent. 

We  go  along  a  straight,  flat  highway  of  grey 
stones,  through  flat,  green  fields  and  between  thin 
lines  of  trees  —  tall  and  slender  and  delicate  trees. 
There  are  no  hedges.  Only  here  and  there  a  row 
of  poplars  or  pollard  willows  is  flung  out  as  a  screen 
against  the  open  sky.  This  country  is  formed  for 
the  very  expression  of  peace.  The  straight  flat 
roads,  the  straight  flat  fields  and  straight  tall  trees 
stand  still  in  an  immense  quiet  and  serenity.  We 
pass  low  Flemish  houses  with  white  walls  and  red 
roofs.  Their  green  doors  and  shutters  are  tall  and 
slender  like  the  trees,  the  colours  vivid  as  if  the 
paint  had  been  laid  on  yesterday.  It  is  all  unspeak- 
ably beautiful  and  it  comes  to  me  with  the  natural, 
inevitable  shock  and  ecstasy  of  beauty.  I  am  going 
straight  into  the  horror  of  war.  For  all  I  know 
it  may  be  anywhere,  here,  behind  this  sentry;  or 
there,  beyond  that  line  of  willows.  I  don't  know. 
I  don't  care.  I  cannot  realize  it.  All  that  I  can 
see  or  feel  at  the  moment  is  this  beauty.  I  look 
and  look,  so  that  I  may  remember  it. 

Is  it  possible  that  I  am  enjoying  myself? 


A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM       II 

I  dare  not  tell  Mrs.  Torrence.  I  dare  not  tell 
any  of  the  others.  They  seem  to  me  inspired  with 
an  austere  sense  of  duty,  a  terrible  integrity.  They 
know  what  they  are  here  for.  To  me  it  is  incredible 
that  I  should  be  here. 

I  am  in  Car  I.,  sitting  beside  Tom,  the  chauffeur; 
Mrs.  Torrence  is  on  the  other  side  of  me.  Tom 
disapproves  of  these  Flemish  roads.  He  cannot  see 
that  they  are  beautiful.  They  will  play  the  devil 
with  his  tyres. 

I  am  reminded  unpleasantly  that  our  Daimler  is 
not  a  touring  car  but  a  motor  ambulance  and  that 
these  roads  will  jolt  the  wounded  most  abominably. 

There  are  straggling  troops  on  the  road  now. 
At  the  nearest  village  all  the  inhabitants  turn  out 
to  cheer  us.  They  cry  out  " Les  Anglais!"  and 
laugh  for  joy.  Perhaps  they  think  that  if  the  Brit- 
ish Red  Cross  has  come  the  British  Army  can't 
be  far  behind.  But  when  they  hear  that  we  are 
Belgian  Red  Cross  they  are  gladder  than  ever. 
They  press  round  us.  It  is  wonderful  to  them  that 
we  should  have  come  all  the  way  from  England 
"pour  les  Beiges!"  Somehow  the  beauty  of  the 
landscape  dies  before  these  crowding,  pressing  faces. 

We  pass  through  Bruges  without  seeing  it.  I 
have  no  recollection  whatever  of  having  seen  the 
Belfry.  We  see  nothing  but  the  Canal  (where  we 


12       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

halt  to  take  in  petrol)  and  more  villages,  more  faces. 
And  more  troops. 

Half-way  between  Bruges  and  Ghent  an  embank- 
ment thrown  up  on  each  side  of  the  road  tells  of 
possible  patrols  and  casual  shooting.  It  is  the  first 
visible  intimation  that  the  enemy  may  be  any- 
where. 

A  curious  excitement  comes  to  you.  I  suppose 
it  is  excitement,  though  it  doesn't  feel  like  it.  You 
have  been  drunk,  very  slightly  drunk  with  the  speed 
of  the  car.  But  now  you  are  sober.  Your  heart 
beats  quietly,  steadily,  but  with  a  little  creeping, 
mounting  thrill  in  the  beat.  The  sensation  is  dis- 
tinctly pleasurable.  You  say  to  yourself,  "  It  is 
coming.  Now  —  or  the  next  minute  —  perhaps  at 
the  end  of  the  road."  You  have  one  moment  of 
regret.  "  After  all,  it  would  be  a  pity  if  it  came  too 
soon,  before  we'd  even  begun  our  job."  But  the 
thrill,  mounting  steadily,  overtakes  the  regret.  It 
is  only  a  little  thrill,  so  far  (for  you  don't  really 
believe  that  there  is  any  danger),  but  you  can  imag- 
ine the  thing  growing,  growing  steadily,  till  it  be- 
comes ecstasy.  Not  that  you  imagine  anything  at 
the  moment.  At  the  moment  you  are  no  longer  an 
observing,  reflecting  being;  you  have  ceased  to  be 
aware  of  yourself;  you  exist  only  in  that  quiet, 
steady  thrill  that  is  so  unlike  any  excitement  that 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       13 

you  have  ever  known.  Presently  you  get  used  to 
it.  "  What  a  fool  I  should  have  been  if  I  hadn't 
come.  I  wouldn't  have  missed  this  run  for  the 
world." 

I  forget  myself  so  far  as  to  say  this  to  Mrs.  Tor- 
rence.  My  voice  doesn't  sound  at  all  like  the  stern 
voice  of  duty.  It  is  the  voice  of  somebody  en- 
joying herself.  I  am  behaving  exactly  as  I  behaved 
this  morning  at  Ostend;  and  cannot  possibly  hope 
for  any  sympathy  from  Mrs.  Torrence. 

But  Mrs.  Torrence  has  unbent  a  little.  She  has 
in  fact  been  unbending  gradually  ever  since  we  left 
Ostend.  There  is  a  softer  light  in  her  beautiful 
eyes.  For  she  is  not  only  a  trained  nurse  but  an 
expert  motorist;  and  a  Daimler  is  a  Daimler  even 
when  it's  an  ambulance  car.  From  time  to  time 
remarks  of  a  severely  technical  nature  are  exchanged 
between  her  and  Tom.  Still,  up  till  now,  nothing 
has  passed  to  indicate  any  flagging  in  the  relentless 
spirit  of  the Hospital. 

The  next  minute  I  hear  that  the  desire  of  Mrs. 
Torrence's  heart  is  to  get  into  the  greatest  possible 
danger  —  and  to  get  out  of  it. 

The  greatest  possible  danger  is  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  Uhlans.  I  feel  that  I  should  be  very 
glad  indeed  to  get  out  of  it,  but  that  I'm  not  by 
any  means  so  keen  on  getting  in.  I  say  so.  I  con- 


14      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

fess  frankly  that  I'm  afraid  of  Uhlans,  particularly 
when  they're  drunk. 

But  Mrs.  Torrence  is  not  afraid  of  anything. 
There  is  no  German  living,  drunk  or  sober,  who 
could  break  her  spirit.  Nothing  dims  for  her  that 
shining  vision  of  the  greatest  possible  danger.  She 
does  not  know  what  fear  is. 

I  conceive  an  adoration  for  Mrs.  Torrence,  and 
a  corresponding  distaste  for  myself.  For  I  do 
know  what  fear  is.  And  in  spite  of  the  little 
steadily-mounting  thrill,  I  remember  distinctly  those 
five  weeks  of  frightful  anticipation  when  I  knew 
that  I  must  go  out  to  the  War;  the  going  to  bed, 
night  after  night,  drugged  with  horror,  black  horror 
that  creeps  like  poison  through  your  nerves;  the 
falling  asleep  and  forgetting  it;  the  waking,  morn- 
ing after  morning,  with  an  energetic  and  lucid  brain 
that  throws  out  a  dozen  war  pictures  to  the  minute 
like  a  ghastly  cinema  show,  till  horror  becomes  ter- 
ror; the  hunger  for  breakfast;  the  queer,  almost 
uncanny  revival  of  courage  that  follows  its  satis- 
faction ;  the  driving  will  that  strengthens  as  the  day 
goes  on  and  slackens  its  hold  at  evening.  I  remem- 
ber one  evening  very  near  the  end;  the  Sunday 
evening  when  the  Commandant  dropped  in,  after  he 
had  come  back  from  'Belgium.  We  were  stirring 
soup  over  the  gas  stove  in  the  scullery  —  you 


15 

couldn't  imagine  a  more  peaceful  scene  —  when  he 
said,  "  They  are  bringing  up  the  heavy  siege  guns 
from  Namur,  and  there  is  going  to  be  a  terrific 
bombardment  of  Antwerp,  and  I  think  it  will  be 
very  interesting  for  you  to  see  it."  I  remember 
replying  with  passionate  sincerity  that  I  would 
rather  die  than  see  it;  that  if  I  could  nurse  the 
wounded  I  would  face  any  bombardment  you  please 
to  name;  but  to  go  and  look  on  and  make  copy  out 
of  the  sufferings  I  cannot  help  —  I  couldn't  and 
I  wouldn't,  and  that  was  flat.  And  I  wasn't  a  jour- 
nalist any  more  than  I  was  a  trained  nurse. 

I  can  still  see  the  form  of  the  Commandant  rising 
up  on  the  other  side  of  the  scullery  stove,  and  in  his 
pained,  uncomprehending  gaze  and  in  the  words 
he  utters  I  imagine  a  challenge.  It  is  as  if  he  said, 
"  Of  course,  if  you're  afraid" —  (haven't  I  told  him 
that  I  am  afraid?)\ 

The  gage  is  thrown  down  on  the  scullery  floor. 
I  pick  it  up.  And  that  is  why  I  am  here  on  this 
singular  adventure. 

Thus,  for  the  next  three  kilometres,  I  meditate  on 
my  cowardice.  It  is  all  over  as  if  it  had  never  been, 
but  how  can  I  tell  that  it  won't  come  back  again? 
I  can  only  hope  that  when  the  Uhlans  appear  I 
shall  behave  decently.  And  this  place  that  we  have 
come  to  is  Ecloo.  We  are  not  very  far  from  Ghent. 


1 6      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

A  church  spire,  a  few  roofs  rising  above  trees. 
Then  many  roofs  all  together.  Then  the  beautiful 
grey-white  foreign  city. 

As  we  run  through  the  streets  we  are  followed 
by  cyclists ;  cyclists  issue  from  every  side-street  and 
pour  into  our  road;  cyclists  rise  up  out  of  the  ground 
to  follow  us.  We  don't  realize  all  at  once  that 
it  is  the  ambulance  they  are  following.  Bowing 
low  like  racers  over  their  handle-bars,  they  shoot 
past  us;  they  slacken  pace  and  keep  alongside,  they 
shoot  ahead;  the  cyclists  are  most  fearfully  excited. 
It  dawns  on  us  that  they  are  escorting  us ;  that  they 
are  racing  each  other;  that  they  are  bringing  the 
news  of  our  arrival  to  the  town.  They  behave  as 
if  we  were  the  vanguard  of  the  British  Army. 

We  pass  the  old  Military  Hospital  —  Hopital 
Militaire  No.  I. —  and  presently  arrive  at  the  Flan- 
dria  Palace  Hotel,  which  is  Hopital  Militaire  No. 
II.  The  cyclists  wheel  off,  scatter  and  disappear. 
The  crowd  in  the  Place  gathers  round  the  porch  of 
the  hotel  to  look  at  the  English  Ambulance. 

We  enter.  We  are  received  by  various  officials 
and  presented  to  Madame  F.,  the  head  of  the  Red 
Cross  nursing  staff.  There  is  some  confusion,  and 
Mrs.  Torrence  finds  herself  introduced  as  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  English  Committee.  Successfully  con- 
cealed behind  the  broadest  back  in  the  Corps,  which 


A  JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       IJ 

belongs  to  Mr.  Grierson,  I  have  time  to  realize  how 
funny  we  all  are.  Everybody  in  the  hospital  is  in 
uniform,  of  course.  The  nurses  of  the  Belgian  Red 
Cross  wear  white  linen  overalls  with  the  brassard 
on  one  sleeve,  and  the  Red  Cross  on  the  breasts  of 
their  overalls,  and  over  their  foreheads  on  the  front 
of  their  white  linen  veils.  The  men  wear  military 
or  semi-military  uniforms.  We  had  never  agreed 
as  to  our  uniform,  and  some  of  us  had  had  no  time 
to  get  it,  if  we  had  agreed.  Assembled  in  the  vesti- 
bule, we  look  more  like  a  party  of  refugees,  or  the 
cast  of  a  Barrie  play,  than  a  field  ambulance  corps. 
Mr.  Grierson,  the  Chaplain,  alone  wears  complete 
khaki,  in  which  he  is  indistinguishable  from  any 
Tommy.  The  Commandant,  obeying  some  mysteri- 
ous inspiration,  has  left  his  khaki  suit  behind.  He 
wears  a  Norfolk  jacket  and  one  of  his  hats.  Mr. 
Foster  in  plain  clothes,  with  a  satchel  slung  over  his 
shoulders,  has  the  air  of  an  inquiring  tourist.  Mrs. 
Torrence  and  Janet  McNeil  in  short  khaki  tunics, 
khaki  putties,  and  round  Jaeger  caps,  and  very  thick 
coats  over  all,  strapped  in  with  leather  belts,  look 
as  if  they  were  about  to  sail  on  an  Arctic  expedi- 
tion; I  was  told  to  wear  dark  blue  serge,  and  I 
wear  it  accordingly;  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs. 
Lambert  are  in  normal  clothes.  But  the  amiable 
officials  and  the  angelic  Belgian  ladies  behave  as 


l8      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

if  there  was  nothing  in  the  least  odd  about  our  ap- 
pearance. They  remember  only  that  we  are  Eng- 
lish and  that  it  is  now  six  o'clock  and  that  we  have 
had  no  tea.  They  conceive  this  to  be  the  most  de- 
plorable fate  that  can  overtake  the  English,  and 
they  hurry  us  into  the  great  kitchen  to  a  round  table, 
loaded  with  cake  and  bread-and-butter  and  enor- 
mous bowls  of  tea.  The  angelic  beings  in  white 
veils  wait  on  us.  We  are  hungry  and  we  think  (a 
pardonable  error)  that  this  meal  is  hospital  supper; 
after  which  some  work  will  surely  be  found  for  us 
to  do. 

We  are  shown  to  our  quarters  on  the  third  floor. 
We  expect  two  bare  dormitories  with  rows  of  hard 
beds,  which  we  are  prepared  to  make  ourselves,  be- 
sides sweeping  the  dormitories,  and  we  find  a  fine 
suite  of  rooms  —  a  mess-room,  bedrooms,  dressing- 
rooms,  bathrooms  —  and  hospital  orderlies  for  our 
valets  de  chambre. 

We  unpack,  sit  round  the  mess-room  and  wait 
for  orders.  Perhaps  we  may  all  be  sent  down  into 
the  kitchen  to  wash  up.  Personally,  I  hope  we  shall 
be,  for  washing  up  is  a  thing  I  can  do  both  quickly 
and  well.  It  is  now  seven  o'clock. 

At  half-past  we  are  sent  down  into  the  kitchen, 
not  to  wash  up,  but,  if  you  will  believe  it,  to  dine. 
And  more  hospital  orderlies  wait  on  us  at  dinner* 


The  desire  of  our  hearts  is  to  do  something,  if 
it  is  only  to  black  the  boots  of  the  angelic  beings. 
But  no,  there  is  nothing  for  us  to  do.  To-morrow, 
perhaps,  the  doctors  and  stretcher-bearers  will  be 
busy.  We  hear  that  only  five  wounded  have  been 
brought  into  the  hospital  to-day.  They  have  no 
ambulance  cars,  and  ours  will  be  badly  needed  — 
to-morrow.  But  to-night,  no. 

We  go  out  into  the  town,  to  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste, 
and  sit  outside  the  cafe  and  drink  black  coffee  in 
despair.  We  find  our  chauffeurs  doing  the  same 
thing.  Then  we  go  back  to  our  sumptuous  hotel 
and  so,  dejectedly,  to  bed.  Aeroplanes  hover  above 
us  all  night. 

[Sunday f  2jth.'\ 

WE  hang  about  waiting  for  orders.  They  may 
come  at  any  moment.  Meanwhile  this  place  grows 
incredible  and  fantastic.  Now  it  is  an  hotel  and 
now  it  is  a  military  hospital;  its  two  aspects  shift 
and  merge  into  each  other  with  a  dream-like  effect. 
It  is  a  huge  building  of  extravagant  design,  wearing 
its  turrets,  its  balconies,  its  very  roofs,  like  so  much 
decoration.  The  gilded  legend,  "  Flandria  Palace 
Hotel,"  glitters  across  the  immense  white  fagade. 
But  the  Red  Cross  flag  flies  from  the  front  and  from 


2O      A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

the  corners  of  the  turrets  and  from  the  balconies  of 
the  long  flank  facing  south.  You  arrive  under  a 
fan-like  porch  that  covers  the  smooth  slope  of  the 
approach.  You  enter  your  hotel  through  mahogany 
revolving  doors.  A  colossal  Flora  stands  by  the 
lift  at  the  foot  of  the  big  staircase.  Unaware  that 
this  is  no  festival  of  flowers,  the  poor  stupid  thing 
leans  forward,  smiling,  and  holds  out  her  garland 
to  the  wounded  as  they  are  carried  past.  Nobody 
takes  any  notice  of  her.  The  great  hall  of  the  hotel 
has  been  stripped  bare.  All  draperies  and  orna- 
ments have  disappeared.  The  proprietor  has  dis- 
appeared, or  goes  about  disguised  as  a  Red  Cross 
officer.  The  grey  mosaic  of  floors  and  stairs  is 
cleared  of  rugs  and  carpeting;  the  reading-room  is 
now  a  secretarial  bureau;  the  billiard-room  is  an 
operating  theatre;  the  great  dining-hall  and  the  re- 
ception-rooms and  the  bedrooms  are  wards.  The 
army  of  waiters  and  valets  and  chambermaids  has 
gone,  and  everywhere  there  are  surgeons,  ambulance 
men,  hospital  orderlies  and  the  Belgian  nurses  with 
their  white  overalls  and  red  crosses.  And  in  every 
corridor  and  on  every  staircase  and  in  every  room 
there  is  a  mixed  odour,  bitter  and  sweet  and  penetra- 
ting, of  antiseptics  and  of  ether.  When  the  am- 
bulance cars  come  up  from  the  railway  stations  and 
the  battle-fields,  the  last  inappropriate  detail,  the 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       21 

mahogany  revolving  doors,  will  disappear,  so  that 
the  wounded  may  be  carried  through  on  their 
stretchers. 

I  confess  to  a  slight,  persistent  fear  of  seeing 
these  wounded  whom  I  cannot  help.  It  is  not  very 
active,  it  has  left  off  visualizing  the  horror  of 
bloody  bandages  and  'mangled  bodies.  But  it's 
there;  it  waits  for  me  in  every  corridor  and  at  the 
turn  of  every  stair,  and  it  makes  me  loathe  myself. 

We  have  news  this  morning  of  a  battle  at  Alost, 
a  town  about  fifteen  kilometres  southeast  of  Ghent. 
The  Belgians  are  moving  forty  thousand  men  from 
Antwerp  towards  Ghent,  and  heavy  fighting  is  ex- 
pected near  the  town.  If  we  are  not  in  the  thick 
of  it,  we  are  on  the  edge  of  the  thick. 

They  have  just  told  us  an  awful  thing.  Two 
wounded  men  were  left  lying  out  on  the  battle-field 
all  night  after  yesterday's  fighting.  The  military 
ambulances  did  not  fetch  them.  Our  ambulance 
was  not  sent  out.  There  are  all  sorts  of  formalities 
to  be  observed  before  it  can  go.  We  haven't  got 
our  military  passes  yet.  And  our  English  Red 
Cross  brassards  are  no  use.  We  must  have  Belgian 
ones  stamped  with  the  Government  stamp.  And 
these  things  take  time. 

Meanwhile  we,  who  have  still  the  appearance  of 
a  disorganized  Cook's  tourist  party,  are  beginning 


22      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

to  realize  each  other,  the  first  step  to  realizing  our- 
selves. We  have  come  from  heaven  knows  where 
to  live  together  here  heaven  knows  for  how  long. 
The  Commandant  and  I  are  friends ;  Mrs.  Torrence 
and  Janet  McNeil  are  friends;  Dr.  Haynes  and  Dr. 
Bird  are  evidently  friends ;  our  chauffeurs,  Bert  and 
Tom,  are  bound  to  fraternize  professionally;  we  and 
they  are  all  right;  but  these  pairs  were  only  known 
to  each  other  a  week  or  two  ago,  and  some  of  the 
thirteen  never  met  at  all  till  yesterday.  An  un- 
known fourteenth  is  coming  to-day.  We  are  five 
women  and  nine  men.  You  might  wonder  how,  for 
all  social  purposes,  we  are  to  sort  ourselves?  But 
the  idea,  sternly  emphasized  by  Mrs.  Torrence,  is 
that  we  have  no  social  purposes.  We  are  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  strictly  official  and  absolutely 
impersonal  body,  held  together,  not  by  the  ordinary 
affinities  of  men  and  women,  but  by  a  common  de- 
votion and  a  common  aim.  Differences,  if  any 
should  exist,  will  be  sunk  in  the  interest  of  the  com- 
munity. Probabilities  that  rule  all  human  inter- 
course, as  we  have  hitherto  known  it,  will  be  tem- 
porarily suspended  in  our  case.  But  we  shall  gain 
more  than  we  lose.  Insignificant  as  individuals,  as 
a  corps  we  share  the  honour  and  prestige  of  the 
Military  Authority  under  which  we  work.  We 
have  visions  of  a  relentless  discipline  commanding 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      23 

and  controlling  us.  A  cold  glory  hovers  over  the 
Commandant  as  the  vehicle  of  this  transcendent 
power. 

When  the  Power  has  its  way  with  us  it  will  take 
no  count  of  friendships  or  affinities.  It  will  set  prec- 
edence at  naught.  It  will  say  to  itself,  "  Here  are 
two  field  ambulance  cars  and  fourteen  people.  Five 
out  of  these  fourteen  are  women,  and  what  the  devil 
are  they  doing  in  a  field  ambulance  ?  "  And  it  will 
appoint  two  surgeons,  who  will  also  serve  as 
stretcher-bearers,  to  each  car ;  it  will  set  our  trained 
nurse,  Mrs.  Torrence,  in  command  of  the  untrained 
nurses  in  one  of  the  wards  of  the  Military  Hospital 
No.  II.;  the  Hospital  itself  will  find  suitable  fem- 
inine tasks  for  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs.  Lambert ; 
while  Janet  McNeil  and  the  Secretary  will  be  told 
off  to  work  among  the  refugees.  And  until  more 
stretcher-bearers  are  wanted  the  rest  of  us  will  be 
nowhere.  If  nothing  can  be  found  for  our  women 
in  the  Hospital  they  will  be  sent  home. 

It  seems  inconceivable  that  the  Power,  if  it  is 
anything  like  Lord  Kitchener,  can  decide  otherwise. 

Odd  how  the  War  changes  us.  I,  who  abhor  and 
resist  authority,  who  hardly  know  how  I  am  to  bring 
myself  to  obey  my  friend  the  Commandant,  am  en- 
amoured of  this  Power  and  utterly  submissive.  I 
realize  with  something  like  a  thrill  that  we  are  in 


24      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

a  military  hospital  under  military  orders;  and  that 
my  irrelevant  former  self,  with  all  that  it  has  de- 
sired or  done,  must  henceforth  cease  (perhaps  ir- 
revocably) to  exist.  I  contemplate  its  extinction 
with  equanimity.  I  remember  that  one  of  my 
brothers  was  a  Captain  in  the  Gunners,  that  another 
of  them  fought  as  a  volunteer  in  the  first  Boer  War ; 
that  my  uncle,  Captain  Hind,  of  the  Bengal  Fusiliers, 
fought  in  the  Mutiny  and  in  the  Crimean  War,  and 
his  son  at  Chitral,  and  that  I  have  one  nephew  in 
Kitchener's  Army  and  one  in  the  West  Lancashire 
Hussars;  and  that  three  generations  of  solid  sugar- 
planters  and  ship-owners  cannot  separate  me  from 
my  forefathers,  who  seem  to  have  been  fighting  all 
the  time.  (At  the  moment  I  have  forgotten  my 
five  weeks'  blue  funk.) 

Mrs.  Torrence's  desire  for  discipline  is  not  more 
sincere  than  mine.  Meanwhile  the  hand  that  is  to 
lick  us  into  shape  hovers  over  us  and  does  not  fall. 
We  wait  expectantly  in  the  mess-room  which  is  to 
contain  us. 

It  was  once  the  sitting-room  of  a  fine  suite.  A 
diminutive  vestibule  divides  it  from  the  corridor. 
You  enter  through  double  doors  with  muffed  glass 
panes  in  a  wooden  partition  opposite  the  wide 
French  windows  opening  on  the  balcony.  A  pale 
blond  light  from  the  south  fills  the  room.  Its  walls 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      25 


are  bare  except  for  a  map  of  Belgium,  faced  by  a 
print  from  one  of  the  illustrated  papers  represent- 
ing the  King  and  Qufeen  of  the  Belgians.  Of  its 
original  furnishings  only  a  few  cane  chairs  and  a 
settee  remain.  These  are  set  back  round  the  walls 
and  in  the  window.  Long  tables  with  marble  tops, 
brought  up  from  what  was  once  the  hotel  restaurant, 
enclose  three  sides  of  a  hollow  square,  like  this : 


Round  these  we  group  ourselves  thus:  the  Com- 
mandant in  the  middle  of  the  top  table  in  the  win- 
dow, between  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Ursula  Dearmer; 
Dr.  Haynes  and  Dr.  Bird,  on  the  other  side  of  Ursula 
Dearmer;  the  chauffeurs,  Tom  and  Bert,  round  the 
corner  at  the  right-hand  side  table;  I  am  round  the 
other  corner  at  the  left-hand  side  table,  by  Mrs. 
Torrence,  and  Janet  McNeil  is  on  my  right,  and  on 
hers  are  Mrs.  Lambert  and  Mr.  Foster  and  the 
Chaplain.  Mr.  Riley  sits  alone  on  the  inside  op- 
posite Mrs.  Torrence. 

This  rather  quiet  and  very  serious  person  inter- 
ests me.     He  doesn't  say  anything,  and  you  wonder 


26       A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

what  sort  of  consciousness  goes  on  under  the  close- 
cropped,  boyish,  black  velvet  hair.  Nature  has  left 
his  features  a  bit  unfinished,  the  further  to  baffle 
you. 

All  these  people  are  interesting,  intensely  inter- 
esting and  baffling,  as  men  and  women  are  bound  to 
be  who  have  come  from  heaven  knows  where  to 
face  heaven  knows  what.  Most  of  them  are  quite 
innocently  unaware.  They  do  not  know  that  they 
are  interesting,  or  baffling  either.  They  do  not 
know,  and  it  has  not  occurred  to  them  to  wonder, 
how  they  are  going  to  affect  each  other  or  how  they 
are  going  to  behave.  Nobody,  you  would  say,  is 
going  to  affect  the  Commandant.  When  he  is  not 
dashing  up  and  down,  driven  by  his  mysterious 
energy,  he  stands  apart  in  remote  and  dreamy  isola- 
tion. His  eyes,  iwhen  they  are  not  darting  bril- 
liantly in  pursuit  of  the  person  or  the  thing  he  needs, 
stand  apart  too  in  a  blank,  blue  purity,  undarkened 
by  any  perception  of  the  details  that  may  accumulate 
under  his  innocent  nose.  He  has  called  this  corps 
into  being,  gathered  these  strange  men  and  women 
up  with  a  sweep  of  his  wing  and  swept  them  almost 
violently  together.  He  doesn't  know  how  any  of 
us  are  going  to  behave.  He  has  taken  for  granted, 
with  his  naive  and  heart-rending  trust  in  the  beauty 
of  human  nature,  that  we  are  all  going  to  behave 


A    JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       2/ 

beautifully.  He  is  absorbed  in  his  scheme.  Each 
one  of  us  fits  into  it  at  some  point,  and  if  there  is 
anything  in  us  left  over  it  is  not,  at  the  moment, 
his  concern. 

Yet  he  himself  has  margins  about  him  and  a 
mysterious  hinterland  not  to  be  confined  or  ac- 
counted for  by  any  scheme.  He  alone  of  us  has  the 
air,  buoyant,  restless,  and  a  little  vague,  of  being  in 
for  some  tremendous  but  wholly  visionary  adven- 
ture. 

When  I  look  at  him  I  wonder  again  what  this 
particular  adventure  is  going  to  do  to  him,  and 
whether  he  has,  even  now,  any  vivid  sense  of  the 
things  that  are  about  to  happen.  I  remember  that 
evening  in  my  scullery,  and  how  he  talked  about  the 
German  siege-guns  as  if  they  were  details  in  some 
unreal  scene,  the  most  interesting  part,  say,  of  a 
successful  cinematograph  show. 

But  they  are  really  bringing  up  those  siege-guns 
from  Namur. 

And  the  Commandant  has  brought  four  women 
with  him  besides  me.  I  confess  I  was  appalled 
when  I  first  knew  that  they  would  be  brought. 

Mrs.  Torrence,  perhaps  —  for  she  is  in  love  with 
danger,1  and  she  is  of  the  kind  whom  no  power, 

1  It  would  be  truer  to  say  she  was  in  love  with  duty  which 
was  often  dangerous; 


28      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

military  or  otherwise,  can  keep  back  from  their  de- 
sired destiny. 

But  why  little  Janet  McNeil?  1  She  is  the  young- 
est of  us,  an  eighteen-year-old  child  who  has  fol- 
lowed Mrs.  Torrence,  and  will  follow  her  if  she 
walks  straight  into  the  German  trenches.  She  sits 
beside  me  on  my  right,  ready  for  anything,  all  her 
delicate  Highland  beauty  bundled  up  in  the  kit  of 
a  little  Arctic  explorer,  utterly  determined,  utterly 
impassive.  Her  small  face,  under  the  woolly  cap 
that  defies  the  North  Pole,  is  nearly  always  grave; 
but  it  has  a  sudden  smile  that  is  adorable. 

And  the  youngest  but  one,  Ursula  Dearmer,  who 
can't  be  so  much  older  —  Mr.  Riley's  gloom  and 
the  Commandant's  hinterland  are  nothing  to  the 
mystery  of  this  young  girl.  She  looks  as  if  she 
were  not  yet  perfectly  awake,  as  if  it  would  take 
considerably  more  than  the  siege-guns  of  Namur 
to  rouse  her.  She  moves  about  slowly,  as  if  she 
were  in  no  sort  of  hurry  for  the  adventure.  She 
has  slow-moving  eyes,  with  sleepy,  drooping  eyelids 
that  blink  at  you.  She  has  a  rather  sleepy,  rather 
drooping  nose.  Her  shoulders  droop;  her  small 
head  droops,  slightly,  half  the  time.  If  she  were 
not  so  slender  she  would  be  rather  like  a  pretty  dor- 

1  She  very  soon  let  us  know  why.  "  Followed "  is  the 
wrong  word. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       29 

mouse  half -recovering  from  its  torpor.  You  insist 
on  the  determination  of  her  little  thrust-out  under- 
lip,  only  to  be  contradicted  by  her  gentle  and 
delicately-retreating  chin. 

In  our  committee-room,  among  a  band  of  turbu- 
lent female  volunteers,  all  clamouring  for  the  firing- 
line,  Ursula  Dearmer,  dressed  very  simply,  rather 
like  a  senior  school-girl,  and  accompanied  by  her 
mother,  had  a  most  engaging  air  of  submission  and 
docility.  If  anybody  breaks  out  into  bravura  it 
will  not  be  Ursula  Dearmer. 

This  thought  consoles  me  when  I  think  of  the 
last  solemn  scenes  in  that  committee-room  and  of 
the  pledges,  the  frightfully  sacred  pledges,  I  gave 
to  Ursula  Dearmer's  mother.  As  a  result  of  this 
responsibility  I  see  myself  told  off  to  the  dreary 
duty  of  conducting  Ursula  Dearmer  back  to  Dover 
at  the  moment  when  things  begin  to  be  really  thick 
and  thrilling.  And  I  deplore  the  Commandant's 
indiscriminate  hospitality  to  volunteers. 

Mrs.  Lambert  (  she  must  surely  be  the  next  young- 
est) you  can  think  of  with  less  agitation,  in  spite 
of  her  youth,  her  charming  eyes  and  the  recklessly 
extravagant  quantity  of  her  golden  hair.  For  she 
is  an  American  citizen,  and  she  has  a  husband  (also 
an  American  citizen)  in  Ghent,  and  her  husband  has 
a  high-speed  motor-car,  and  if  the  Germans  should 


3O      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

ever  advance  upon  this  city  he  can  be  relied  upon  to 
take  her  out  of  it  before  they  can  possibly  get  in. 
Besides,  even  in  the  German  lines  American  citizens 
are  safe. 

We  are  all  suffering  a  slight  tension.  The  men, 
who  can  see  no  reason  why  the  ambulance  should 
not  have  been  sent  out  last  night,  are  restless  and 
abstracted  and  impatient  for  the  order  to  get  up  and 
go.  No  wonder.  They  have  been  waiting  five 
weeks  for  their  chance. 

There  is  Dr.  Haynes,  whose  large  dark  head  and 
heavy  shoulders  look  as  if  they  sustained  the  whole 
weight  of  an  intolerable  world.  His  features,  de- 
signed for  sensuous  composure,  brood  in  a  sad  and 
sulky  resignation  to  the  boredom  of  delay. 

His  friend,  Dr.  Bird,  the  young  man  with  the 
head  of  an  enormous  cherub  and  the  hair  of  a  blond 
baby,  hair  that  will  fall  in  a  shining  lock  on  his 
pink  forehead,  Dr.  Bird  has  an  air  of  boisterous 
preparation,  as  if  the  ambulance  were  a  picnic  party 
and  he  was  responsible  for  the  champagne. 

Mr.  Foster,  the  inquiring  tourist,  looks  a  little 
anxious,  as  if  he  were  preoccupied  with  the  train 
he's  got  to  catch. 

Bert,  the  chauffeur,  sits  tight  with  the  grim  as- 
surance of  a  man  who  knows  that  the  expedition 
cannot  start  without  him.  The  chauffeur  Tom  has 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      3! 

an  expressive  face.  Every  minute  it  becomes  more 
vivid  with  humorous,  contemptuous,  indignant  pro- 
test. It  says  plainly :  "  Well,  this  is  about  the  rot- 
tenest  show  I  ever  was  let  in  for.  Bar  none.  Call 
yourself  a  field  ambulance?  Garn!  And  if  you 
are  a  field  ambulance,  who  but  a  blanky  fool  would 
have  hit  upon  this  old  blankety  haunt  of  peace.  It'll 
be  the  'Ague  Conference  next !  " 

But  it  is  on  the  Chaplain,  Mr.  Grierson,  that  the 
strain  is  telling1  most.  It  shows  in  his  pale  and 
prominent  blue  eyes,  and  in  a  slight  whiteness  about 
his  high  cheek-bones.  In  his  valiant  khaki  he  has 
more  than  any  of  us  the  air  of  being  on  the  eve. 
He  is  visibly  bracing  himself  to  a  stupendous  effort. 
He  smokes  a  cigarette  with  ostentatious  noncha- 
lance. We  all  think  we  know  these  symptoms. 
We  turn  our  eyes  away,  considerately,  from  Mr. 
Grierson.  Which  of  us  can  say  that  when  our  turn 
comes  the  thought  of  danger  will  not  spoil  our 
breakfast? 

The  poor  boy  squares  his  shoulders.  He  is  white 
now  round  the  edges  of  his  lips.  But  he  is  going 
through  with  it. 

Suddenly  he  speaks. 

"  I  shall  hold  Matins  in  this  room  at  ten  o'clock 
every  Sunday  morning.  If  any  of  you  like  to  at- 
tend you  may." 


32      A  JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

There  is  a  terrible  silence.  None  of  us  look  at 
each  other.  None  of  us  look  >at  Mr.  Grierson. 

Presently  Mrs.  Torrence  is  heard  protesting  that 
we  haven't  come  here  for  Matins;  that  this  is  a 
mess-room  and  not  a  private  chapel ;  and  that  Matins 
are  against  all  military  discipline. 

"  I  shall  hold  Matins  all  the  same,"  says  Mr. 
Grierson.  His  voice  is  thick  and  jerky.  "And  if 
anybody  likes  to  attend,  they  can.  That's  all  I've 
got  to  say." 

He  gets  up.  He  faces  the  batteries  of  unholy 
and  unsympathetic  eyes.  He  throws  away  the  end 
of  his  cigarette  with  a  gesture  of  superb  defiance. 

He  has  gone  through  with  it.  He  has  faced  the 
fire.  He  has  come  out,  not  quite  victorious,  but 
with  his  hero's  honour  unstained. 

It  seemed  to  me  awful  that  none  of  us  should 
want  his  Matins.  I  should  like,  personally,  to  see 
him  through  with  them.  I  could  face  the  hostile 
eyes.  But  what  I  cannot  face  is  the  ceremony  it- 
self. My  moral  was  spoiled  with  too  many  cere- 
monies in  my  youth;  ceremonies  that  lacked  all 
beauty  and  sincerity  and  dignity.  And  though  I  am 
convinced  of  the  beauty  and  sincerity  and  dignity 
of  Mr.  Grierson's  soul  I  cannot  kneel  down  with 
him  and  take  part  in  the  performance  of  his  prayer. 
Prayer  is  either  the  Supreme  Illusion,  or  the  Su- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       33 

preme  Act,  the  pure  and  naked  surrender  to  Reality, 
and  attended  by  such  sacredness  and  shyness  that 
you  can  accomplish  it  only  when  alone  or  lost  in  a 
multitude  that  prays. 

But  why  is  there  no  Victoria  Cross  for  moral 
courage  ? 

(Dr.  Wilson  has  come.  He  looks  clever  and 
nice.) 

Our  restlessness  increases. 

[n  a.m.] 

I  HAVE  seen  one  of  them.  As  I  went  downstairs 
this  morning,  two  men  carrying  a  stretcher  crossed 
the  landing  below.  I  saw  the  outline  of  the 
wounded  body  under  the  blanket,  and  the  head  laid 
back  on  the  pillow. 

It  is  impossible,  it  is  inconceivable,  that  I  should 
have  been  afraid  of  seeing  this.  It  is  as  if  the 
wounded  man  himself  absolved  me  from  the  mem- 
ory and  the  reproach  of  fear. 

I  stood  by  the  stair-rail  to  let  them  pass.  There 
was  some  difficulty  about  turning  at  the  stair-head. 
Mr.  Riley  was  there.  He  came  forward  and  took 
one  end  of  the  stretcher  and  turned  it.  He  was 
very  quiet  and  very  gentle.  You  could  see  that  he 
did  the  right  thing  by  instinct.  And  I  saw  his  face, 
and  knew  what  had  brought  him  here. 


34      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

And  here  on  the  first  landing  is  another  wounded. 
His  face  is  deformed  by  an  abscess  from  a  bullet 
in  his  mouth.  In  gives  him  a  terrible  look,  half 
savage,  wholly  suffering.  He  sits  there  and  cannot 
speak. 

Mr.  Riley  is  the  only  one  of  us  who  has  found 
anything  to  do.  So  presently  we  go  out  to  get  our 
military  passes.  We  stroll  miserably  about  the 
town,  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  our  futility.  We 
buy  cigarettes  for  the  convalescents. 

And  at  noon  no  orders  have  come  for  us. 

They  come  just  as  we  are  sitting  down  to  lunch. 
Our  ambulance  car  is  to  go  to  Alost  at  once.  The 
Commandant  is  arrested  in  the  act  of  cutting  bread. 
Dr.  Bird  is  arrested  in  the  act  of  eating  it.  We 
are  all  arrested  in  our  several  acts.  As  if  they  had 
been  criminal  acts,  we  desist  suddenly.  The  men 
get  up  and  look  at  each  other.  It  is  clear  that  they 
cannot  all  go.  Mr.  Grierson  looks  at  the  Com- 
mandant. His  face  is  a  little  white  and  strained, 
as  it  was  this  morning  when  he  announced  Matins 
for  ten  o'clock. 

The  Commandant  looks  at  Dr.  Bird  and  tells  him 
that  he  may  go  if  he  likes.  His  tone  is  admirably 
casual;  it  conveys  no  sense  of  the  magnificence  of 
his  renunciation.  He  looks  also  at  Mr.  Grierson 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      35 

and  Mr.  Foster.  The  lot  of  honour  falls  upon  these 
three. 

They  set  out,  still  with  their  air  of  a  youthful 
picnic  party.  Dr.  Bird  is  more  than  ever  the  bois- 
terous young  man  in  charge  of  the  champagne. 

I  am  contented  so  long  as  Ursula  Dearmer  and 
Mrs.  Lambert  and  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  McNeil 
and  the  Commandant  do  not  go  yet.  To  anybody 
who  knows  the  Commandant  he  is  bound  to  be  a 
prominent  figure  in  the  terrible  moving  pictures 
made  by  fear.  Smitten  by  some  great  idea,  he 
dashes  out  of  cover  as  the  shrapnel  is  falling.  He 
wanders,  wrapped  in  a  happy  dream,  into  the  en- 
emies' trenches.  He  mingles  with  their  lines  of 
communication  as  I  hate  seen  him  mingle  with  the 
traffic  at  the  junction  of  Chandos  Street  and  the 
Strand.  If  you  were  to  inform  him  of  a  patrol  of 
Uhlans  coming  down  the  road,  he  would  only  say, 
"  I  see  no  Uhlans,"  and  continue  in  their  direction. 
It  is  inconceivable  to  his  optimism  that  he  should 
encounter  Uhlans  in  a  world  so  obviously  made  for 
peace  and  righteousness. 

So  that  it  is  a  relief  to  see  somebody  else  (whom 
I  do  not  know  quite  so  well)  going  first.  Time 
enough  to  be  jumpy  when  the  Commandant  and  the 
women  go  forth  on  the  perilous  adventure. 


36      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

That  is  all  very  well.  But  I  am  jumpy  all  the 
same.  By  the  mere  fact  that  they  are  going  out 
first  Mr.  Grierson  and  Mr.  Foster  have  suddenly 
become  dear  and  sacred.  Their  lives,  their  persons, 
their  very  clothes  —  Dr.  Bird's  cheerful  face,  which 
is  so  like  an  overgrown  cherub's,  his  blond,  gold 
lock  of  infantile  hair,  Mr.  Grierson's  pale  eyes  that 
foresee  danger,  his  not  too  well  fitting  khaki  coat 
—  have  acquired  suddenly  a  priceless  value,  the 
value  of  things  long  seen  and  long  admired.  It  is 
as  if  I  had  known  them  all  my  life;  as  if  life  will 
be  unendurable  if  they  do  not  come  back  safe. 

It  is  not  very  endurable  now.  Of  all  the  things 
that  can  happen  to  a  woman  on  a  field  ambulance, 
the  worst  is  to  stay  behind.  To  stay  behind  with 
nothing  in  the  world  to  do  but  to  devise  a  variety 
of  dreadful  deaths  for  Tom,  the  chauffeur,  and  Dr. 
Bird  and  Mr.  Grierson  and  Mr.  Foster.  To  know 
nothing  except  that  Alost  is  being  bombarded  and 
that  it  is  to  Alost  that  they  are  going. 

And  the  others  who  have  been  left  behind  are 
hanging  about  in  gloom,  disgusted  with  their  fate. 
Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  McNeil  are  beginning  to 
ask  themselves  what  they  are  here  for.  To  go 
through  the  wards  is  only  to  be  in  the  way  of  the 
angelic  beings  with  red  crosses  on  their  breasts  and 
foreheads  who  are  already  somewhat  in  each  other's 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       37 

way.  Mrs.  Torrence  and  the  others  do,  however, 
go  into  the  wards  and  talk  to  the  wounded  and  cheer 
them  up.  I  sit  in  the  deserted  mess-room,  and  look 
at  the  lunch  that  Tom  and  Dr.  Bird  and  Mr.  Grier- 
son  should  have  eaten  and  were  obliged  to  leave 
behind.  I  would  give  anything  to  be  able  to  go 
round  the  wards  and  cheer  the  wounded  up.  I  won- 
der whether  there  is  anything  I  could  conceivably 
do  for  the  wounded  that  would  not  bore  them  in- 
expressibly if  I  were  to  do  it.  I  frame  sentence 
after  sentence  in  strange  and  abominable  French, 
and  each,  apart  from  its  own  inherent  absurdity, 
seems  a  mockery  of  the  wounded.  You  cannot  go 
to  an  immortal  hero  and  grin  at  him  and  say  Com- 
ment allez-vous?  and  expect  him  to  be  cheered  up, 
especially  when  you  know  yourself  to  be  one  of  a 
long  procession  of  women  who  have  done  the  same. 

I  abandon  myself  to  my  malady  of  self -distrust. 

It  is  at  its  worst  when  Jean  and  Max,  the  con- 
valescent orderlies,  come  in  to  remove  the  ruins  of 
our  mess.  They  are  pathetic  and  adorable  with 
their  close-cropped  heads  in  the  pallor  of  their  con- 
valescence (Jean  is  attired  in  a  suit  of  yellowish 
linen  and  Max  in  striped  flannels).  Jean's  pallor 
is  decorated  (there  is  no  other  word  for  it)  with 
blue-grey  eyes,  black  eyebrows,  black  eyelashes  and 
a  little  black  moustache.  He  is  martial  and  ardent 


38      A  JOUR'NAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

and  alert.  But  the  pallor  of  Max  is  unredeemed;  it 
is  morbid  and  profound.  It  has  invaded  his  whole 
being.  His  eyelids  and  his  small  sensitive  mouth 
are  involved;  and  his  round  dark  eyes  have  the 
queer  grey  look  of  some  lamentable  wonder  and 
amazement.  But  neither  horror  nor  discipline  have 
spoiled  his  engaging  air  —  the  air  of  a  very  young 
collegien  who  has  broken  loose  and  got  into  this 
Military  Hospital  by  mistake. 

I  do  not  know  whether  intuition  is  a  French  or 
Belgian  gift.  Jean  and  Max  are  not  Belgian  but 
French,  and  they  have  it  to  a  marvellous  degree. 
They  seemed  to  know  in  an  instant  what  was  the 
matter  with  the  English  lady;  and  they  set  about 
curing  the  malady.  I  have  seldom  seen  such  perfect 
tact  and  gentleness  as  was  then  displayed  by  those 
two  hospital  orderlies,  Max  and  Jean.  They  had 
been  wounded  not  so  very  long  ago.  But  they 
think  nothing  of  that.  They  intimate  that  if  I  in- 
sist on  helping  them  with  their  plates  and  dishes  they 
will  be  wounded,  and  more  severely,  in  their  honour. 

We  converse. 

It  is  in  conversation  that  they  are  most  adorable. 
They  gaze  at  you  with  candid,  innocent  eyes;  not 
a  quiver  of  a  lip  or  an  eyelash  betrays  to  you  the 
outrageous  quality  of  your  French.  The  behaviour 
of  your  sentences  would  cause  a  scandal  in  a  private 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       39 

boarding  school  for  young  ladies,  it  is  so  fantas- 
tically incorrect.  But  Max  and  Jean  receive  each 
phrase  with  an  imperturbable  and  charming  gravity. 
By  the  subtlest  suggestion  of  manner  they  assure 
you  that  you  speak  with  fluency  and  distinction, 
that  yours  is  a  very  perfect  French.  Only  their 
severe  attentiveness  warns  you  of  the  strain  you  are 
putting  on  them. 

Max  lingered  long  after  Jean  had  departed  to  his 
kitchen.  And  presently  he  gave  up  his  secret.  He 
is  a  student,  and  they  took  him  from  his  College 
(his  course  unfinished)  to  fight  for  his  country. 
When  the  .War  broke  out  his  mother  went  mad 
with  the  horror  of  it.  He  told  me  this  quite  simply, 
as  if  he  were  relating  a  common  incident  of  war- 
time. Then,  with  a  little  air  of  mystery,  he  signed 
to  me  to  follow  him  along  the  corridor.  He  stopped 
at  a  closed  door  and  showed  me  a  name  inscribed 
in  thick  ornamental  Gothic  characters  on  a  card 
tacked  to  the  panel : 

prosper  panne, 

Max  is  not  his  real  name.  It  is  the  name  that 
Prosper  Panne  has  taken  to  disguise  himself  while 
he  is  a  servant.  Prosper  Panne  —  il  est  ecrivain, 
journaliste.  He  writes  for  the  Paris  papers.  He 
looked  at  me  with  his  amazed,  pathetic  eyes,  and 


4O      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

pointed  with  a  finger  to  his  breast  to  assure  me  that 
he  is  he,  Prosper  Panne. 

And  in  the  end  I  asked  him  whether  it  would  bore 
the  wounded  frightfully  if  I  took  them  some  ciga- 
rettes? (I  laid  in  cigarettes  this  morning  as  a  pro- 
vision for  this  desolate  afternoon.) 

And  —  dear  Prosper  Panne  —  so  thoroughly  did 
he  understand  my  malady,  that  he  himself  escorted 
me.  It  is  as  if  he  knew  the  peur  sacre  that  restrains 
me  from  flinging  myself  into  the  presence  of  the 
wounded.  Soft-footed  and  graceful,  turning  now 
and  then  with  his  instinct  of  protection,  the  orderly 
glides  before  me,  smoothing  the  way  between  my 
shyness  and  this  dreaded  majesty  of  suffering. 

I  followed  him  (with  my  cigarettes  in  my  hand 
and  my  heart  in  my  mouth)  into  the  big  ward  on  the 
ground  floor. 

I  don't  want  to  describe  that  ward,  or  the  effect 
of  those  rows  upon  rows  of  beds,  those  rows  upon 
rows  of  bound  and  bandaged  bodies,  the  intensity 
of  physical  anguish  suggested  by  sheer  force  of 
multiplication,  by  the  diminishing  perspective  of  the 
beds,  by  the  clear  light  and  nakedness  of  the  great 
hall  that  sets  these  repeated  units  of  torture  in  a 
world  apart,  a  world  of  insufferable  space  and  ago- 
nizing time,  ruled  by  some  inhuman  mathematics 
and  given  over  to  pure  transcendent  pain.  A  suf- 


A    JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS    IN    BELGIUM       4! 

ficiently  large  ward  full  of  wounded  really  does 
leave  an  impression  very  like  that.  But  the  one 
true  thing  about  this  impression  is  its  transcendence. 
It  is  utterly  removed  from  and  unlike  anything  that 
you  have  experienced  before.  From  the  moment 
that  the  doors  have  closed  behind  you,  you  are  in 
another  world,  and  under  its  strange  impact  you 
are  given  new  senses  and  a  new  soul.  If  there  is 
horror  here  you  are  not  aware  of  it  as  horror.  Be- 
fore these  multiplied  forms  of  anguish  what  you 
feel  —  if  there  be  anything  of  you  left  to  feel  — 
is  not  pity,  because  it  is  so  near  to  adoration. 

If  you  are  tired  of  the  burden  and  malady  of 
self,  go  into  one  of  these  great  wards  and  you  will 
find  instant  release.  You  and  the  sum  of  your  little 
consciousness  are  not  things  that  matter  any  more. 
The  lowest  and  the  least  of  these  wounded  Belgians 
is  of  supreme  importance  and  infinite  significance. 
You,  who  were  once  afraid  of  them  and  of  their 
wounds,  may  think  that  you  would  suffer  for  them 
now,  gladly ;  but  you  are  not  allowed  to  suffer ;  you 
are  marvellously  and  mercilessly  let  off.  In  this 
sudden  deliverance  from  yourself  you  have  received 
the  ultimate  absolution,  and  their  torment  is  your 
peace. 

In  the  big  ward  very  few  of  the  men  were 
well  enough  to  smoke.  So  we  went  to  the  little 


42       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

wards  where  the  convalescents  are,  Max  leading. 

I  do  not  think  that  Max  has  received  absolution 
yet.  It  is  quite  evident  that  he  is  proud  of  his  entree 
into  this  place  and  of  his  intimacy  with  the  wounded, 
of  his  role  of  interpreter. 

But  how  perfectly  he  does  it !  He  has  no  Flem- 
ish, but  through  his  subtle  gestures  even  the  poor 
Flamand,  who  has  no  French,  understands  what  I 
want  to  say  to  him  and  can't.  He  turns  this  mod- 
est presentation  of  cigarettes  into  a  high  social  func- 
tion, a  trifle  ambitious,  perhaps,  but  triumphantly 
achieved. 

All  that  was  over  by  about  three  o'clock,  when 
the  sanctuary  cast  us  out,  and  Max  went  back  to 
his  empty  kitchen  and  became  Prosper  Panne  again, 
and  remembered  that  his  mother  was  mad;  and  I 
went  to  the  empty  mess-room  and  became  my  miser- 
able self  and  remembered  that  the  Field  Ambulance 
was  still  out,  God  knows  where. 

The  mess-room  windows  look  south  over  the  rail- 
way lines  towards  the  country  where  the  fighting  is. 
From  the  balcony  you  can  see  the  lines  where  the 
troop  trains  run,  going  north-west  and  south-east. 
The  Station,  the  Post  Office,  the  Telegraph  and 
Telephone  Offices  are  here,  all  in  one  long  red-brick 
building  that  bounds  one  side  of  the  Place.  It 
stands  at  right  angles  to  the  Flandria  and  stretches 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      43 

along  opposite  its  flank.  It  has  a  flat  roof  with  a 
crenelated  parapet.  Grass  grows  on  the  roof.  No 
guns  are  mounted  there,  for  Ghent  is  an  open  city. 
But  in  German  tactics  bombardment  by  aeroplane 
doesn't  seem  to  count,  and  our  situation  is  more 
provocative  now  than  the  Terminus  Hotel  at  Os- 
tend. 

Beyond  the  straight  black  railway  lines  are  miles 
upon  miles  of  flat  open  country,  green  fields  and 
rows  of  poplars,  and  little  woods,  and  here  and  there 
a  low  rise  dark  with  trees.  Under  our  windows  the 
white  street  runs  south-eastward,  and  along  it  scout- 
ing cars  and  cycling  corps  rush  to  the  fighting  lines, 
and  military  motor-cars  hurry  impatiently,  carrying 
Belgian  staff  officers ;  the  ammunition  wagons  lum- 
ber along,  and  the  troops  march  in  a  long  file,  to 
disappear  round  the  turn  of  the  road.  That  is 
where  the  others  have  gone,  and  I'd  give  everything 
I  possess  to  go  with  them. 

They  have  come  back,  incredibly  safe,  and  have 
brought  in  four  wounded. 

There  was  a  large  crowd  gathered  in  the  Place 
to  see  them  come,  a  crowd  that  has  nothing  to  do 
and  that  lives  from  hour  to  hour  on  this  spectacle 
of  the  wounded.  Intense  excitement  this  time,  for 
one  of  the  four  wounded  is  a  German.  He  was 
lying  on  a  stretcher.  No  sooner  had  they  drawn 


44      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

him  out  of  the  ambulance  than  they  put  him  back 
again.  (  No  Germans  are  taken  in  at  our  Hospital ; 
they  are  all  sent  to  the  old  Hopital  Militaire  No.  I.) 
He  thrust  up  his  poor  hand  and  grabbed  the  hang- 
ing strap  to  raise  himself  a  little  in  his  stretcher, 
and  I  saw  him.  He  was  ruddy  and  handsome. 
His  thick  blond  hair  stood  up  stiff  from  his  fore- 
head. His  little  blond  moustache  was  turned  up  and 
twisted  fiercely  like  the  Kaiser's.  The  crowd  booed 
at  him  as  he  lay  there.  His  was  a  terrible  pathos, 
unlike  any  other.  He  was  so  defiant  and  so  help- 
less. And  there's  another  emotion  gone  by  the 
board.  You  simply  could  not  hate  him. 

Later  in  the  evening  both  cars  were  sent  out, 
Car  No.  i  with  the  Commandant  and,  if  you  will 
believe  it,  Ursula  Dearmer.  Heavens!  What  can 
the  Military  Power  be  thinking  of  ?  Car  No.  2  took 
Dr.  Wilson  and  Mrs.  Torrence.  The  Military 
Power,  I  suppose,  has  ordained  this  too.  And  when 
I  think  of  Mrs.  Torrence's  dream  of  getting  into 
the  greatest  possible  danger,  I  am  glad  that  the 
Commandant  is  with  Ursula  Dearmer.  We  pledged 
our  words,  he  and  I,  that  danger  and  Ursula  Dear- 
mer should  never  meet. 

They  all  come  back,  impossibly  safe.  They  are 
rather  like  children  after  the  party,  too  excited  to 
give  a  lucid  and  coherent  tale  of  what  they've  done. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      45 

My  ambulance  Day-Book  stores  the  stuff  from 
which  reports  and  newspaper  articles  are  to  be  made. 
I  note  that  Car  No.  i  has  brought  three  wounded  to 
Hospital  I.,  and  that  Car  No.  2  has  brought  four 
wounded  to  Hospital  II.,  also  that  a  dum-dum 
bullet  has  been  found  in  the  hand  of  one  of  the 
three.  There  is  a  considerable  stir  among  the  sur- 
geons over  this  bullet.  They  are  vaguely  gratified 
at  its  being  found  in  our  hospital  and  not  the  other. 

Little  Janet  McNeil  and  Mr.  Riley  and  all  the 
others  who  were  left  behind  have  gone  to  bed  in 
hopeless  gloom.  Even  the  bullet  hasn't  roused  them 
beyond  the  first  tense  moment. 

I  ask  for  ink,  and  dear  Max  has  given  me  all  his 
in  his  own  ink-pot. 

[Monday,  2&th.] 

WE  have  been  here  a  hundred  years. 

Car  No.  i  went  out  at  eight-thirty  this  morning, 
with  the  Commandant  and  Dr.  Bird  and  Ursula 
Dearmer  and  Mr.  Grierson  and  a  Belgian  Red  Cross 
guide.  With  Tom,  the  chauffeur,  that  makes  six. 
Tom's  face,  as  he  sees  this  party  swarming  on  his 
car,  is  expressive  of  tumultuous  passions.  Disgust 
predominates. 

Their  clothes  seem  stranger  than  ever  by  contrast 


46      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

with  the  severe  military  khaki  of  the  car.  Dr.  Bird 
has  added  to  his  civilian  costume  a  Belgian  forage 
cap  with  a  red  tassel  that  hangs  over  his  forehead. 
It  was  given  to  him  yesterday  by  way  of  homage  to 
his  courage  and  his  personal  charm.  But  it  makes 
him  horribly  vulnerable.  The  Chaplain,  standing 
out  from  the  rest  of  the  Corps  in  complete  khaki, 
is  an  even  more  inevitable  mark  for  bullets.  Tom 
stares  at  everybody  with  eyes  of  violent  inquiry. 
He  still  evidently  wants  to  know  whether  we  call 
ourselves  a  field  ambulance.  He  starts  his  car  with 
movements  of  exasperation  and  despair.  We  are  to 
judge  what  his  sense  of  discipline  must  be  since  he 
consents  to  drive  the  thing  at  all. 

The  Commandant  affects  not  to  see  Tom.  Per- 
haps he  really  doesn't  see  him. 

It  is  just  as  well  that  he  can't  see  Mrs.  Torrence, 
or  Janet  McNeil  or  Mr.  Riley  or  Dr.  Haynes. 
They  are  overpowered  by  this  tragedy  of  being  left 
behind.  Under  it  the  discipline  of  the Hos- 
pital breaks  down.  The  eighteen-year-old  child  is 
threatening  to  commit  suicide  or  else  go  home.  She 
regards  the  two  acts  as  equivalent.  Mr.  Riley's 
gloom  is  now  so  awful  that  he  will  not  speak  when 
he  is  spoken  to.  He  looks  at  me  with  dumb  hos- 
tility, as  if  he  thought  that  I  had  something  to  do 
with  it.  Dr.  Haynes's  melancholy  is  even  more 


A  JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      47 

heart-rending,  because  it  is  gentle  and  unexpressed. 

I  try  to  console  them.  I  point  out  that  it  is  a 
question  of  arithmetic.  There  are  only  two  cars 
and  there  are  fourteen  of  us.  Fourteen  into  two 
won't  go,  even  if  you  don't  count  the  wounded. 
And,  after  all,  we  haven't  been  here  two  days.  But 
it  is  no  good.  We  have  been  here  a  hundred  years, 
and  we  have  done  nothing.  There  isn't  anything 
to  do.  There  are  not  enough  wounded  to  go  round. 
We  turn  our  eyes  with  longing  towards  Antwerp, 
so  soon  to  be  battered  by  the  siege-guns  from 
Namur. 

And  Bert,  poor  Bert!  he  has  crawled  into  Am- 
bulance Car  No.  2  where  it  stands  outside  in  the 
hospital  yard,  and  he  has  hidden  himself  under  the 
hood. 

Mrs.  Lambert  is  a  little  sad,  too.  But  we  are 
none  of  us  very  sorry  for  Mrs.  Lambert.  We  have 
gathered  that  her  husband  is  a  journalist,  and  that 
he  is  special  correspondent  at  the  front  for  some 
American  paper.  He  has  a  motor-car  which  we  as- 
sume rashly  to  be  the  property  of  his  paper.  He  is 
always  dashing  off  to  the  firing-line  in  it,  and  Mrs. 
Lambert  is  always  at  liberty  to  go  with  him.  She 
is  mistaken  if  she  thinks  that  her  sorrow  is  in  any 
way  comparable  with  ours. 

But  if  there  are  not  enough  wounded  to  go  round 


48      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

in  Ghent,  there  are  more  refugees  than  Ghent  can 
deal  with.  They  are  pouring  in  by  all  the  roads 
from  Alost  and  Termonde.  Every  train  disgorges 
multitudes  of  them  into  the  Place. 

This  morning  I  went  to  the  Matron,  Madame  F., 
and  told  her  I  wasn't  much  good,  but  I'd  be  glad 
if  she  could  give  me  some  work.  I  said  I  supposed 
there  was  some  to  be  done  among  the  refugees. 

Work?  Among  the  refugees?  They  could  em- 
ploy whole  armies  of  us.  There  are  thousands  of 
refugees  at  the  Palais  des  Fetes.  I  had  better  go 
there  and  see  what  is  being  done.  Madame  will 
give  me  an  introduction  to  her  sister-in-law,  Madame 
F.,  the  Presidente  of  the  Comite  des  Dames,  and 
to  her  niece,  Mademoiselle  F.,  who  will  take  me  to 
the  Palais. 

And  Madame  adds  that  there  will  soon  be  work 
for  all  of  us  in  the  Hospital.  Yes:  even  for  the 
untrained. 

Life  is  once  more  bearable. 

But  the  others  won't  believe  it.  They  say  there 
are  three  hundred  nurses  in  the  hospital. 

And  the  fact  remains  that  we  have  two  young 
surgeons  cooling  their  heels  in  the  corridors,  and 
a  fully-trained  nurse  tearing  her  hair  out,  while  the 
young  girl,  Ursula  Dearmer,  takes  the  field. 

And  I  think  of  the  poor  little  dreamy,  guileless 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      49 

Commandant  in  his  conspicuous  car,  and  I  smile  at 
her  in  secret,  thanking  Heaven  that  it's  Ursula 
Dearmer  and  not  Mrs.  Torrence  who  is  at  his  side. 

The  ambulance  has  come  back  from  Alost  with 
two  or  three  wounded  and  some  refugees.  The 
Commandant  is  visibly  elated,  elated  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  work  actually  done.  Ursula  Dearmer 
is  not  elated  in  the  very  least,  but  she  is  wide-awake. 
Her  docility  has  vanished  with  her  torpor.  She  and 
the  Commandant  both  look  as  if  something  ex- 
tremely agreeable  had  happened  to  them  at  Alost. 
But  they  are  reticent.  We  gather  that  Ursula 
Dearmer  has  been  working  with  the  nuns  in  the  Con- 
vent at  Alost,  where  the  wounded  were  taken  before 
the  ambulance  cars  removed  them  to  Ghent.  It 
sounded  very  safe. 

But  the  Commandant  dashed  into  my  room  after 
luncheon.  His  face  was  radiant,  almost  ecstatic. 
He  was  like  a  child  who  has  rushed  in  to  tell  you 
how  ripping  the  pantomime  was. 

"  We've  been  under  fire!  " 

But  I  was  very  angry.  Coldly  and  quietly 
angry.  I  felt  like  that  when  I  was  ten  years  old 
and  piloting  my  mother  through  the  thick  of  the 
traffic  between  Guildhall  and  the  Bank,  and  she 
broke  from  me  and  was  all  but  run  over.  I  don't 
quite  know  what  I  said  to  him,  but  I  think  I  said 


'50      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself.     For  it  seems 
that  Ursula  Dearmer  was  with  him. 

I  remembered  how  Ursula  Dearmer's  mother  had 
come  to  me  in  the  committee-room  and  asked  me 
how  near  we  proposed  to  go  to  the  firing-line,  and 
whether  her  daughter  would  be  in  any  danger,  and 
how  I  said,  first  of  all,  that  there  wasn't  any  use 
pretending  that  there  wouldn't  be  danger,  and  that 
the  chances  were  —  and  how  the  Commandant  had 
intervened  at  that  moment  to  assure  her  that  danger 
there  would  be  none.  With  a  finger  on  the  map  of 
France  and  Belgium  he  traced  the  probable,  the  in- 
evitable, course  of  the  campaign ;  and  in  light,  casual 
tones  which  allayed  all  anxiety,  he  explained  how,  as 
the  Germans  advanced  upon  any  point,  we  should 
retire  upon  our  base.  As  for  the  actual  field-work, 
with  one  gesture  he  swept  the  whole  battle-line  into 
the  distance,  and  you  saw  it  as  an  infinitely  receding 
tide  that  left  its  wrack  strewn  on  a  place  of  peace 
where  the  ambulance  wandered  at  its  will,  secure 
from  danger.  The  whole  thing  was  done  with  such 
compelling  and  convincing  enthusiasm  that  Ursula 
Dearmer's  mother  adopted  more  and  more  the  hum- 
ble attitude  of  a  mere  woman  who  has  failed  to 
grasp  the  conditions  of  modern  warfare.  Ursula 
Dearmer  herself  looked  more  docile  than  ever, 
though  a  little  bored,  and  very  sleepy. 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      '51 

And  I  remembered  how  when  it  was  all  over 
Ursula  Dearmer's  mother  implored  me,  if  there  was 
any  danger,  to  see  that  Ursula  Dearmer  was  sent 
home,  and  how  I  promised  that  whatever  happened 
Ursula  Dearmer  would  be  safe,  clinching  it  with  a 
frightfully  sacred  inner  vow,  and  saying  to  myself 
at  the  same  time  what  a  terrible  nuisance  this  young 
girl  is  going  to  be.  I  saw  myself  at  the  moment  of 
parting,  standing  on  the  hearthrug,  stiff  as  a  poker 
with  resolution,  and  saying  solemnly,  "  I'll  keep 
my  word ! " 

And  here  was  the  Commandant  informing  me 
with  glee  that  a  shell  had  fallen  and  burst  at  Ursula 
Dearmer's  feet. 

He  was  so  pleased,  and  with  such  innocent  and 
childlike  pleasure,  that  I  hadn't  the  heart  to  tell  him 
that  there  wasn't  much  resemblance  between  those 
spaces  of  naked  peace  behind  the  receding  battle-line 
and  the  narrow  streets  of  a  bombarded  village.  I 
only  said  that  I  should  write  to  Ursula  Dearmer's 
mother  and  ask  her  to  release  me  from  my  promise. 
He  said  I  would  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  said  I 
would.  And  I  did.  And  the  poor  Commandant 
left  me,  somewhat  dashed,  and  not  at  all  pleased 
with  me. 

It  seems  that  the  shell  burst,  not  exactly  at  Ursula 
Dearmer's  feet,  but  ten  yards  away  from  her.  It 


'52       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

came  romping  down  the  street  with  immense  impetus 
and  determination;  and  it  is  not  said  of  Ursula 
Dearmer  that  she  was  much  less  coy  in  the  encoun- 
ter. She  took  to  shell-fire  "  like  a  duck  to  water." 

Dr.  Bird  told  us  this.  Ursula  Dearmer  herself 
was  modest,  and  claimed  no  sort  of  intimacy  with 
the  shell  that  waked  her  up.  She  was  as  nice  as 
possible  about  it.  But  all  the  same,  into  the  whole 
Corps  (that  part  of  it  that  had  been  left  behind)" 
there  has  crept  a  sneaking  envy  of  her  luck.  I  feel 
it  myself.  And  if  7  feel  it,  what  must  Mrs.  Tor- 
rence  and  Janet  feel? 

Mrs.  Lambert,  anyhow,  has  had  nothing  to  com- 
plain of  so  far.  Her  husband  took  her  to  Alost  in 
his  motor-car;  I  mean  the  motor-car  which  is  the 
property  of  his  paper. 

In  the  afternoon  Mademoiselle  F.  called  to  take 
me  to  the  Palais  des  Fetes.  We  stopped  at  a  shop 
on  the  way  to  buy  the  Belgian  Red  Cross  uniform 
—  the  white  linen  overall  and  veil  —  which  you 
must  wear  if  you  work  among  the  refugees  there. 

Madame  F.  is  very  kind  and  very  tired.  She  has 
been  working  here  since  early  morning  for  weeks 
on  end.  They  are  short  of  volunteers  for  the  serv- 
ice of  the  evening  meals,  and  I  am  to  work  at  the 
tables  for  three  hours,  from  six  to  nine  P.  M.  This 
is  settled,  and  a  young  Red  Cross  volunteer  takes  me 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      53 

over  the  Palais.  It  is  an  immense  building,  rather 
like  Olympia.  It  stands  away  from  the  town  in 
open  grounds  like  the  Botanical  Gardens,  Regent's 
Park.  It  is  where  the  great  Annual  Shows  were 
held  and  the  vast  civic  entertainments  given.  Miles 
of  country  round  Ghent  are  given  up  to  market-gar- 
dening. There  are  whole  fields  of  begonias  out 
here,  brilliant  and  vivid  in  the  sun.  They  will  never 
be  sold,  never  gathered,  never  shown  in  the  Palais 
des  Fetes.  It  is  the  peasants,  the  men  and  women 
who  tilled  these  fields,  and  their  children  that  are 
being  shown  here,  in  the  splendid  and  wonderful 
place  where  they  never  set  foot  before. 

There  are  four  thousand  of  them  lying  on  straw 
in  the  outer  hall,  in  a  space  larger  than  Olympia. 
They  are  laid  out  in  rows  all  round  the  four  walls, 
and  on  every  foot  of  ground  between ;  men,  women 
and  children  together,  packed  so  tight  that  there  is 
barely  standing-room  between  any  two  of  them. 
Here  and  there  a  family  huddles  up  close,  trying  to 
put  a  few  inches  between  it  and  the  rest ;  some  have 
hollowed  out  a  place  in  the  straw  or  piled  a  barrier 
of  straw  between  themselves  and  their  neighbours, 
in  a  piteous  attempt  at  privacy;  some  have  dragged 
their  own  bedding  with  them  and  are  lodged  in  com- 
parative comfort.  But  these  are  the  very  few. 
The  most  part  are  utterly  destitute,  and  utterly  aban- 


'54       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

doned  to  their  destitution.  They  are  broken  with 
fatigue.  They  have  stumbled  and  dropped  no  mat- 
ter where,  no  matter  beside  whom.  None  turns 
from  his  neighbour;  none  scorns  or  hates  or  loathes 
his  fellow.  The  rigidly  righteous  bourgeoise  lies  in 
the  straw  breast  to  breast  with  the  harlot  of  the 
village  slum,  and  her  innocent  daughter  back  to  back 
with  the  parish  drunkard.  Nothing  matters. 
Nothing  will  ever  matter  any  more. 

They  tell  you  that  when  darkness  comes  down 
on  all  this  there  is  hell.  But  you  do  not  believe  it. 
You  can  see  nothing  sordid  and  nothing  ugly  here. 
The  scale  is  too  vast.  Your  mind  refuses  this  coup- 
ling of  infamy  with  transcendent  sorrow.  It  rejects 
all  images  but  the  one  image  of  desolation  which  is 
final  and  supreme.  It  is  as  if  these  forms  had  no 
stability  and  no  significance  of  their  own;  as  if  they 
were  locked  together  in  one  immense  body  and 
stirred  or  slept  as  one. 

Two  or  three  figures  mount  guard  over  this  litter 
of  prostrate  forms.  They  are  old  men  and  old 
women  seated  on  qhairs.  They  sit  upright  and  im- 
mobile, with  their  hands  folded  on  their  knees. 
Some  of  them  have  fallen  asleep  where  they  sit. 
They  are  all  rigid  in  an  attitude  of  resignation. 
They  have  the  dignity  of  figures  that  will  endure, 
like  that,  for  ever.  They  are  Flamands. 


A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       55 

This  place  is  terribly  still.  There  is  hardly  any 
rustling  of  the  straw.  Only  here  and  there  the  cry 
of  a  child  fretting  for  sleep  or  for  its  mother's 
breast.  These  people  do  not  speak  to  each  other. 
Half  of  them  are  sound  asleep,  fixed  in  the  posture 
they  took  when  they  dropped  into  the  straw.  The 
others  are  drowsed  with  weariness,  stupefied  with 
sorrow.  On  all  these  thousands  of  faces  there  is  a 
mortal  apathy.  Their  ruin  is  complete.  They  have 
been  stripped  bare  of  the  means  of  life  and  of  all 
likeness  to  living  things.  They  do  not  speak. 
They  do  not  think.  They  do  not,  for  the  moment, 
feel.  In  all  the  four  thousand  —  except  for  the 
child  crying  yonder  —  there  is  not  one  tear. 

And  you  who  look  at  them  cannot  speak  or  think 
or  feel  either,  and  you  have  not  one  tear.  A  path 
has  been  cleared  through  the  straw  from  door  to 
door  down  the  middle  of  the  immense  hall,  a  nar- 
rower track  goes  all  round  it  in  front  of  the  litters 
that  are  ranged  under  the  walls,  and  you  are  taken 
through  and  round  the  Show.  You  are  to  see  it 
all.  The  dear  little  Belgian  lady,  your  guide,  will 
not  let  you  miss  anything.  "  Re  garde  z,  Made- 
moiselle, ces  deux:  petltes  filles.  Qu'elles  sont  jolies, 
les  pauvres  petites."  "  Void  deux  jeunes  maries, 
qui  dorment.  Regardes  I'homme;  il  tient  encore  la 
main  de  sa  femme." 


56      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

You  look.  Yes.  They  are  asleep.  He  is  really 
holding  her  hand.  "  Et  ces  quatre  petits  enfants 
qui  ont  perdu  leur  pere  et  leur  mere.  C'est  triste, 
n'est-ce  pas,  Mademoiselle?" 

And  you  say,  "  Oui,  Mademoiselle.  C'est  bien 
triste." 

But  you  don't  mean  it.  You  don't  feel  it.  You 
don't  know  whether  it  is  <c  triste  "  or  not.  You  are 
not  sure  that  "  triste  "  is  the  word  for  it.  There  are 
no  words  for  it,  because  there  are  no  ideas  for  it. 
It  is  a  sorrow  that  transcends  all  sorrow  that  you 
have  ever  known.  You  have  a  sort  of  idea  that  per- 
haps, if  you  can  ever  feel  again,  this  sight  will  be 
worse  to  remember  than  it  is  to  see.  You  can't  be- 
lieve what  you  see;  you  are  stunned,  stupefied,  as  if 
you  yourself  had  been  crushed  and  numbed  in  the 
same  catastrophe.  Only  now  and  then  a  face  up- 
turned (a  face  that  your  guide  hasn't  pointed  out 
to  you)  surging  out  of  this  incredible  welter  of 
faces  and  forms,  smites  you  with  pity,  and  you 
feel  as  if  you  had  received  a  lacerating  wound  in 
sleep. 

Little  things  strike  you,  though.  Already  you  are 
forgetting  the  faces  of  the  two  little  girls  and  of 
the  young  husband  and  wife  holding  each  other's 
hands,  and  of  the  four  little  children  who  have  lost 
their  father  and  mother,  but  you  notice  the  little  dog, 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      '57 

the  yellow-brown  mongrel  terrier,  that  absurd  little 
dog  which  belongs  to  all  nations  and  all  countries. 
He  has  obtained  possession  of  the  warm  centre  of  a 
pile  of  straw  and  is  curled  up  on  it  fast  asleep.  And 
the  Flemish  family  who  brought  him,  who  carried 
him  in  turn  for  miles  rather  than  leave  him  to  the 
Germans,  they  cannot  stretch  themselves  on  the 
straw  because  of  him.  They  have  propped  them- 
selves up  as  best  they  may  all  round  him,  and  they 
cannot  sleep,  they  are  too  uncomfortable. 

More  thousands  than  there  is  room  for  in  the 
straw  are  fed  three  times  a  day  in  the  inner  hall, 
leading  out  of  this  dreadful  dormitory.  All  round 
the  inner  hall  and  on  the  upper  story  off  the  gallery 
are  rooms  for  washing  and  dressing  the  children 
and  for  bandaging  sore  feet  and  attending  to  the 
wounded.  For  there  are  many  wounded  among 
the  refugees.  This  part  of  the  Palais  is  also  a  hos- 
pital, with  separate  wards  for  men,  for  women  and 
children  and  for  special  cases. 

Late  in  the  evening  M.  P took  the  whole 

Corps  to  see  the  Palais  des  Fetes,  and  I  went  again. 
By  night  I  suppose  it  is  even  more  "  triste  "  than  it 
was  by  day.  In  the  darkness  the  gardens  have 
taken  on  some  malign  mystery  and  have  given  it  to 
the  multitudes  that  move  there,  that  turn  in  the 
winding  paths  among  ghostly  flowers  and  bushes, 


58      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

that  approach  and  recede  and  approach  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  lawns.  Blurred  by  the  darkness  and 
diminished  to  the  barest  indications  of  humanity, 
their  forms  are  more  piteous  and  forlorn  than  ever ; 
their  faces,  thrown  up  by  the  darkness,  more  awful 
in  their  blankness  and  their  pallor.  The  scene, 
drenched  in  darkness,  is  unearthly  and  unintelligible. 
You  cannot  account  for  it  in  saying  to  yourself  that 
these  are  the  refugees,  and  everybody  knows  what 
a  refugee  is;  that  there  is  War  —  and  everybody 
knows  what  war  is  —  in  Belgium;  and  that  these 
people  have  been  shelled  out  of  their  homes  and  are 
here  at  the  Palais  des  Fetes,  because  there  is  no 
other  place  for  them,  and  the  kind  citizens  of  Ghent 
have  undertaken  to  house  and  feed  them  here. 
That  doesn't  make  it  one  bit  more  credible  or  bring 
you  nearer  to  the  secret  of  these  forms.  You  who 
are  compelled  to  move  with  them  in  the  sinister  dark- 
ness are  more  than  ever  under  the  spell  that  forbids 
you  and  them  to  feel.  You  are  deadened  now  to 
the  touch  of  the  incarnate. 

On  the  edge  of  the  lawn,  near  the  door  of  the 
Palais,  some  ghostly  roses  are  growing  on  a  ghostly 

tree.  Your  guide,  M.  P ,  pauses  to  tell  you 

their  names  and  kind.  It  seems  that  they  are 
rare. 

Several  hundred  more  refugees  have  come  into 


'59 

the  Palais  since  the  afternoon.  They  have  had  to 
pack  them  a  little  closer  in  the  straw.  Eight  thou- 
sand were  fed  this  evening  in- the  inner  hall. 

In  the  crush  I  get  separated  from  M.  P and 

from  the  Corps.  I  see  some  of  them  in  the  distance, 
the  Commandant  and  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs. 
Lambert  and  M.  P .  I  do  not  feel  as  if  I  be- 
longed to  them  any  more.  I  belong  so  much  to  the 
stunned  sleepers  in  the  straw  who  cannot  feel. 

Nice  Dr.  Wilson  comes  across  to  me  and  we  go 
round  together,  looking  at  the  sleepers.  He  says 
that  nothing  he  has  seen  of  the  War  has  moved  him 
so  much  as  this  sight.  He  wishes  that  the  Kaiser 
could  be  brought  here  to  see  what  he  has  done.  And 
I  find  myself  clenching  my  hands  tight  till  it  hurts, 
not  to  suppress  my  feelings  —  for  I  feel  nothing  — 
but  because  I  am  afraid  that  kind  Dr.  Wilson  is 
going  to  talk.  At  the  same  time,  I  would  rather 
he  didn't  leave  me  just  yet.  There  is  a  sort  of  com- 
fort and  protection  in  being  with  somebody  who 
isn't  callous,  who  can  really  feel. 

But  Dr.  Wilson  isn't  very  fluent,  and  presently  he 
leaves  off  talking,  too. 

Near  the  door  we  pass  the  family  with  the  little 
yellow-brown  dog.  All  day  the  little  dog  slept  in 
their  place.  And  now  that  they  are  trying  to  sleep 
he  will  not  let  them.  The  little  dog  is  wide  awake 


60      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

and  walking  all  over  them.  And  when  you  think 
what  it  must  have  cost  to  bring  him  — 

C'est  triste,  n'est-ce  pas? 

As  we  left  the  gardens  M.  P gathered  two 

ghostly  roses,  the  last  left  on  their  tree,  and  gave 
one  to  Mrs.  Lambert  and  one  to  me.  I  felt  some- 
thing rather  like  a  pang  then.  Heaven  knows  why, 
for  such  a  little  thing. 

Conference  in  our  mess-room.  M.  ,  the 

Belgian  Red  Cross  guide  who  goes  out  with  our 
ambulances,  is  there.  He  is  very  serious  and  impor- 
tant. The  Commandant  calls  us  to  come  and  hear 
what  he  has  to  say.  It  seems  it  had  been  arranged 
that  one  of  our  cars  should  be  sent  to-morrow  morn- 
ing to  Termonde  to  bring  back  refugees.  But  M. 

does  not  think  that  car  will  ever  start.  He 

says  that  the  Germans  are  now  within  a  few  miles 
of  Ghent,  and  may  be  expected  to  occupy  it  to-mor- 
row morning,  and  that  instead  of  going  to  Termonde 
to-morrow  we  had  very  much  better  pack  up  and  re- 
treat to  Bruges  to-night.  There  are  ten  thousand 
Germans  ready  to  march  into  Ghent. 

M.  is  weighed  down  by  the  thought  of  his 

ten  thousand  Germans.  But  the  Commandant  is 
not  weighed  down  a  bit.  On  the  contrary,  a  pleas- 
ant exaltation  comes  upon  him.  It  comes  upon  the 
whole  Corps,  it  comes  even  upon  me.  We  refuse  to 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      6l 

believe  in  his  ten  thousand  Germans.  M. him- 
self cannot  swear  to  them.  We  refuse  to  pack  up. 
We  refuse  to  retreat  to  Bruges  to-night.  Time 
enough  for  agitation  in  the  morning.  We  prefer  to 

go  to  bed.     M. shrugs  his  shoulders,  as  much 

as  to  say  that  he  has  done  his  duty  and  if  we  are  all 
murdered  in  our  beds  it  isn't  his  fault. 

Does  M. really  believe  in  the  advance  of  the 

ten  thousand?     His  face  is  inscrutable. 


[Tuesday,  2gth.] 

No  Germans  in  Ghent.  No  Germans  reported 
near  Ghent. 

Madame  F.  and  her  daughter  smile  at  the  idea 
of  the  Germans  coming  into  Ghent.  They  will 
never  come,  and  if  they  do  come  they  will  only  take 
a  little  food  and  go  out  again.  They  will  never  do 
any  harm  to  Ghent.  Namur  and  Liege  and  Brus- 
sels, if  you  like,  and  Malines,  and  Louvain,  and 
Termonde  and  Antwerp  (perhaps);  but  Ghent  — 
why  should  they?  It  is  Antwerp  they  are  making 
for,  not  Ghent. 

And  Madame  represents  the  mind  of  the  average 
Gantois.  It  is  placid,  incredulous,  stolidly  at  ease, 
superbly  inhospitable  to  disagreeable  ideas.  No 
Gantois  can  conceive  that  what  has  been  done  to  the 


62       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

citizens  of  Termonde  would  be  done  to  him.  C'est 
triste  — '  what  has  been  done  to  the  citizens  of  Ter- 
monde, but  it  doesn't  shake  his  belief  in  the  imr 
munity  of  Ghent. 

Which  makes  M.  's  behaviour  all  the  more 

mysterious.  Why  did  he  try  to  scare  us  so  ?  Five 
theories  are  tenable : 

(i.)  M. did  honestly  believe  that  ten  thou- 
sand Germans  would  come  in  the  morning  and  take 
our  ambulance  prisoner.  That  is  to  say,  he  believed 
what  nobody  else  believed. 

(2.);  M.  was  scared  himself.  He  had  no 

desire  to  be  taken  quite  so  near  the  firing-line  as  the 
English  Ambulance  seemed  likely  to  take  him;  so 
that  the  departure  of  the  English  Ambulance  would 

not  be  wholly  disagreeable  to  M.  .  (This 

theory  is  too  far-fetched.) 

(3.)  M.  was  the  agent  of  the  Military 

Power,  commissioned  to  test  the  nerve  of  the  Eng- 
lish Ambulance.  ("  Stood  fire,  have  they?  Give 
'em  a  real  scare,  and  see  how  they  behave."  J 

(4.)  M. is  a  psychologist  and  made  this  lit- 
tle experiment  on  the  English  Ambulance  himself. 

(5.)  He  is  a  humorist  and  was  simply  "pulling 
its  leg." 

The  three  last  theories  are  plausible,  but  all  five 
collapse  before  the  inscrutability  of  Monsieur's  face. 


A   JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      63 

Germans  or  no  Germans,  one  ambulance  car 
started  at  five  in  the  morning  for  Quatrecht,  some- 
where between  Ghent  and  Brussels,  to  fetch 
wounded  and  refugees.  The  other  went,  later,  to 
Zele.  I  am  not  very  clear  as  to  who  has  gone  with 
them,  but  Mrs.  Torrence,  Mrs.  Lambert,  Janet  Mc- 
Neil and  Dr.  Haynes  and  Mr.  Riley  have  been  left 
behind. 

It  is  their  third  day  of  inactivity,  and  three  months 
of  it  could  not  have  devastated  them  more.  They 
have  touched  the  very  bottom  of  suicidal  gloom. 
Three  months  hence  their  state  of  mind  will  no 
doubt  appear  in  all  its  absurdity,  but  at  the  moment 
it  is  too  piteous  for  words.  When  you  think  what 
they  were  yesterday  and  the  day  before,  there  is  no 
language  to  express  the  crescendo  of  their  despair. 
I  came  upon  Mr.  Riley  this  morning,  standing  by 
the  window  of  the  mess-room,  and  contemplating  the 
facade  of  the  railway  station.  (It  is  making  a  pat- 
tern on  our  brains. )  I  tried  to  soothe  him.  I  said 
it  was  hard  lines  —  beastly  hard  lines  —  and  told 
him  to  cheer  up  —  there'd  be  heaps  for  him  to  do 
presently.  And  he  turned  from  me  like  a  man  who 
has  just  buried  his  first-born. 

Janet  McNeil  is  even  more  heart-rending,  sunk 
in  a  chair  with  her  hands  stuck  into  the  immense 
pockets  of  her  overcoat,  her  flawless  and  impassive 


64      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

face  tilted  forward  as  her  head  droops  forlornly  to 
her  breast.  She  is  such  a  child  that  she  can  see 
nothing  beyond  to-day,  and  yesterday  and  the  day 
before  that.  She  is  going  back  to-morrow.  Her 
valour  and  energy  are  frustrated  and  she  is  wounded 
in  her  honour.  She  is  conscious  of  the  rottenness 
of  putting  on  a  khaki  tunic,  and  winding  khaki  put- 
ties round  and  round  her  legs  to  hang  about  the  Hos- 
pital doing  nothing.  And  she  had  to  sell  her  motor 
bicycle  in  order  to  come  out.  Not  that  that  matters 
in  the  least.  What  matters  is  that  we  are  here,  eat- 
ing Belgian  food  and  quartered  in  a  Belgian  Mili- 
tary Hospital,  and  "  swanking  "  about  with  Belgian 
Red  Cross  brassards  (stamped)  on  our  sleeves,  and 
doing  nothing  for  the  Belgians,  doing  nothing  for 
anybody.  We  are  not  justifying  our  existence. 
We  are  frauds. 

I  tell  the  poor  child  that  she  cannot  possibly  feel 
as  big  a  fraud  as  I  do;  that  there  was  no  earthly 
reason  why  I  should  have  come,  and  none  whatever 
why  I  should  remain. 

And  then,  to  my  amazement,  I  learn  that  I  am 
envied.  It's  all  right  for  me.  My  job  is  clearly 
defined,  and  nobody  can  take  it  from  me.  I  haven't 
got  to  wind  khaki  putties  round  my  legs  for  noth- 
ing. 

I  should  have  thought  that  the  child  was  making 


65 

jokes  at  my  expense  but  for  the  extreme  purity  and 
candour  of  her  gaze.  Incredible  that  there  should 
exist  an  abasement  profounder  than  my  own.  I 
have  hidden  my  tunic  and  breeches  in  my  hold-all. 
I  dare  not  own  to  having  brought  them. 

Down  in  the  vestibule  I  encounter  Mrs.  Torrence 
in  khaki.  Mrs.  Torrence  yearning  for  her  wounded. 
Mrs.  Torrence  determined  to  get  to  her  wounded 
at  any  cost.  She  is  not  abased  or  dejected,  but  ex- 
alted, rather.  She  is  ready  to  go  to  the  Presi- 
dent or  to  the  Military  Power  itself,  and  demand  her 
wounded  from  them.  Her  beautiful  eyes  demand 
them  from  Heaven  itself. 

I  cannot  say  there  are  not  enough  wounded  to 
go  round,  but  I  point  out  for  the  fifteenth  time  that 
the  trouble  is  there  are  not  enough  ambulance  cars 
to  go  round. 

But  it  is  no  use.  It  does  not  explain  why  Heaven 
should  have  chosen  Ursula  Dearmer  and  caused 
shells  to  bound  in  her  direction,  and  have  rejected 
Mrs.  Torrence.  The  Military  Power  that  should 
have  ordered  these  things  has  abandoned  us  to  the 
caprice  of  Heaven. 

Of  course  if  Mrs.  Torrence  was  a  saint  she  would 
fold  her  hands  and  bow  her  superb  little  head  before 
the  decrees  of  Heaven;  but  she  is  only  a  mortal 
woman,  born  with  the  genius  of  succour  and  trained 


66      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

to  the  last  point  of  efficiency;  so  she  rages.  The 
tigress,  robbed  of  her  young,  is  not  more  furiously 
inconsolable  than  Mrs.  Torrence. 

It  is  not  Ursula  Dearmer's  fault.  She  is  inno- 
cent of  supplanting  Mrs.  Torrence.  The  thing  sim- 
ply happened.  More  docile  than  determined,  un- 
hurrying  and  uneager,  and  only  half-awake,  she 
seems  to  have  rolled  into  Car  No.  i  with  Heaven's 
impetus  behind  her.  Like  the  shell  at  Alost,  it  is 
her  luck. 

And  on  the  rest  of  us  our  futility  and  frustration 
weigh  like  lead.  The  good  Belgian  food  has  be- 
come bitter  in  our  mouths.  ,When  we  took  our  mis- 
erable walk  through  Ghent  this  morning  we  felt  that 
I' Ambulance  Anglaise  must  be  a  mark  for  public 
hatred  and  derision  because  of  us.  I  declare  I 
hardly  dare  go  into  the  shops  with  the  Red  Cross 
brassard  on  my  arm.  I  imagine  sardonic  raillery  in 
the  eyes  of  every  Belgian  that  I  meet.  We  do  not 
think  the  authorities  will  stand  it  much  longer ;  they 
will  fire  us  out  of  the  Hopital  Militaire  No.  II. 

But  no,  the  authorities  do  not  fire  us  out.  Im- 
passive in  wisdom  and  foreknowledge,  they  smile 
benignly  on  our  agitation.  They  compliment  the 
English  Ambulance  on  the  work  it  has  done  already. 
They  convey  the  impression  that  but  for  the  Eng- 
lish Ambulance  the  Belgian  Army  would  be  in  a 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      67 

bad  way.  Mademoiselle  F.  insists  that  the  Hospital 
will  soon  be  overflowing  with  the  wounded  from 
Antwerp  and  that  she  can  find  work  even  for  me. 
It  is  untrue  that  there  are  three  hundred  nurses  in 
the  Hospital.  There  are  only  three  hundred  nurses  in 
all  Belgium.  They  pile  it  on  so  that  we  are  more 
depressed  than  ever. 

Janet  McNeil  is  convinced  that  they  think  we  are 
no  good  and  that  they  are  just  being  angels  to  us 
because  they  are  sorry  for  us. 

I  break  it  to  them  very  gently  that  I've  volun- 
teered to  serve  at  the  tables  at  the  Palais  des  Fetes. 
I  feel  as  if  I  had  sneaked  into  a  remunerative  job 
while  my  comrades  are  starving. 

The  Commandant  is  not  quite  as  pleased  as  I 
thought  he  would  be  to  hear  of  my  engagement  at 
the  Palais  des  Fetes.  He  says,  "  It  is  not  your 
work."  I  insist  that  my  work  is  to  do  anything  I 
can  do ;  and  that  if  I  cannot  dress  wounds  I  can  at 
least  hand  round  bread  and  pour  out  coffee  and  wash 
up  dishes.  It  is  true  that  I  am  Secretary  and  Re- 
porter and  (for  the  time  being)  Treasurer  to  the 
Ambulance,  and  that  I  carry  its  funds  in  a  leather 
purse  belt  round  my  body.  Because  I  am  the  small- 
est and  weakest  member  of  the  Corps  that  is  the 
most  unlikely  place  for  the  funds  to  be.  It  was  im- 
prudent, to  say  the  least  of  it,  for  the  Chaplain  in 


68       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

his  khaki,  to  carry  them,  as  he  did,  into  the  firing- 
line.  The  belt,  which  fitted  the  Chaplain,  hangs 
about  half  a  yard  below  my  waist  and  is  extremely 
uncomfortable,  but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
Keeping  the  Corps'  accounts  only  takes  two  hours 
and  a  half,  even  with  Belgian  and  English  money 
mixed,  and  when  I've  added  the  same  column  of 
figures  ten  times  up  and  ten  times  down,  to  make 
certain  it's  all  right  (I  am  no  good  at  accounts,  but 
I  know  my  weakness  and  guard  against  it,  giving  the 
Corps  the  benefit  of  every  doubt  and  making  good 
every  deficit  out  of  my  private  purse).  Writing  the 
Day-Book  —  perhaps  half  an  hour.  The  Com- 
mandant's correspondence,  when  he  has  any,  and 
reporting  to  the  British  Red  Cross  Society,  when 
there  is  anything  to  report,  another  half-hour  at  the 
outside;  and  there  you  have  only  three  and  a  half 
hours  employed  out  of  the  twenty-four,  even  if  I 
balanced  my  accounts  every  day,  and  I  don't. 

True  that  The  Daily  Chronicle  promised  to  take 
any  articles  that  I  might  send  them  from  the  front, 
but  I  haven't  written  any.  You  cannot  write  ar- 
ticles for  The  Daily  Chronicle  out  of  nothing;  at 
least  I  can't. 

The  Commandant  finally  yields  to  argument  and 
entreaty. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      69 

I  do  not  tell  him  that  what  I  really  want  to  do  is 
to  go  out  with  the  Field  Ambulance,  and  get  beyond 
the  turn  of  that  road. 

I  know  I  haven't  the  ghost  of  a  chance;  I  know 
that  if  I  had  —  as  things  stand  at  present  —  not  be- 
ing a  surgeon  or  a  trained  nurse,  I  wouldn't  take  it, 
even  to  get  there.  And  at  the  same  time  I  know, 
with  a  superior  certainty,  that  this  unlikely  thing 
will  happen.  This  sense  of  certainty  is  not  at  all 
uncommon,  but  it  is,  or  seems,  unintelligible.  You 
can  only  conceive  it  as  a  premonition  of  some  un- 
avoidable event.  It  is  as  if  something  had  been 
looking  for  you,  waiting  for  you,  from  all  eternity 
out  here ;  something  that  you  have  been  looking  for ; 
and,  when  you  are  getting  near,  it  begins  calling  to 
you;  it  draws  your  heart  out  to  it  all  day  long. 
You  can  give  no  account  of  it.  All  that  you  know 
about  it  is  that  it  is  unique.  It  has  nothing  to  do 
with  your  ordinary  curiosities  and  interests  and 
loves;  nothing  to  do  with  the  thirst  for  experience, 
or  for  adventure,  or  for  glory,  or  for  the  thrill. 
You  can't  "  get "  anything  out  of  it.  It  is  some- 
thing hidden  and  secret  and  supremely  urgent.  Its 
urgency,  indeed,  is  so  great  that  if  you  miss  it  you 
will  have  missed  reality  itself. 

For  me  this  uncanny  anticipation  is  somehow  con- 
nected with  the  turn  of  the  south-east  road.  I  do 


7O      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

not  see  how  I  am  ever  going  to  get  there  or  any- 
where near  there.  But  I  am  not  uneasy  or  impa- 
tient any  more.  There  is  no  hurry.  The  thing, 
whatever  it  is,  will  be  irresistible,  and  if  I  don't  go 
out  to  find  it,  it  will  find  me. 

Mrs.  Torrence  has  gone,  Heaven  knows  where. 
She  has  not  been  with  the  others  at  the  Palais  des 
Fetes.  Janet  McNeil  and  Mrs.  Lambert  have  been 
working  there  for  five  hours,  serving  meals  to  the 
refugees.  Ursula  Dearmer  with  extreme  docility 
has  been  working  all  the  afternoon  with  the  nurses. 

It  looks  as  if  we  were  beginning  to  settle 
down. 

Mrs.  Torrence  has  come  back.  The  red  German 
pom-pom  has  gone  from  her  cap  and  she  wears  the 
badge  of  the  Belgian  Motor  Cyclist  Corps,  black 
wings  on  a  white  ground.  Providence  has  rehabili- 
tated himself.  He  has  abased  our  trained  nurse  and 
expert  motorist  in  order  to  exalt  her.  He  fairly 
flung  her  in  the  path  of  the  Colonel  of  (I  think) 
the  Belgian  Motor  Cyclist  Corps  at  a  moment  when 
the  Colonel  found  himself  in  a  jibbing  motor-car 
without  a  chauffeur.  We  gather  that  the  Colonel 
was  becoming  hectic  with  blasphemy  when  she  ap- 
peared and  settled  the  little  difficulty  between  him 
and  his  car.  She  seems  to  have  followed  it  Up  by 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      71 

driving  him  then  and  there  straight  up  to  the  firing- 
line  to  look  for  wounded. 

End  of  the  adventure  —  she  volunteered  her  serv- 
ices as  chauffeur  to  the  Colonel  and  was  accepted. 

The  Commandant  has  received  the  news  with  im- 
perturbable optimism. 

As  for  her,  she  is  appeased.  She  will  realize  her 
valorous  dream  of  "the  greatest  possible  danger;" 
and  she  will  get  to  her  wounded. 

The  others  have  come  back  too.  They  have  toiled 
for  five  hours  among  the  refugees. 

[5-30-] 

IT  is  my  turn  now  at  the  Palais  des  Fetes. 

It  took  ages  to  get  in.  The  dining-hall  is  nar- 
rower than  the  sleeping-hall,  but  it  extends  beyond 
it  on  one  side  where  there  is  a  large  door  opening 
on  the  garden.  But  this  door  is  closed  to  the  public. 
You  can  only  reach  the  dining-hall  by  going  through 
the  straw  among  the  sleepers.  And  at  this  point  the 
Commandant's  optimism  has  broken  down.  He 
won't  let  you  go  in  through  the  straw,  and  the  clerk 
who  controls  the  entry  won't  let  you  go  in  through 
the  other  door.  You  explain  to  the  clerk  that  the 
English  Ambulance  being  quartered  in  a  Military 
Hospital,  its  rules  are  inviolable ;  it  is  not  allowed  to 


72       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

expose  itself  to  the  horrors  of  the  straw.  The  clerk 
is  not  interested  in  the  English  Ambulance,  he  is 
not  impressed  by  the  fact  that  it  has  volunteered  its 
priceless  services  to  the  Refugee  Committee,  and  he 
is  contemptuous  of  the  orders  of  its  Commandant. 
His  business  is  to  see  that  you  go  into  the  Palais 
through  his  door  and  not  through  any  other  door. 
And  when  you  tell  him  that  if  he  will  not  withdraw 
his  regulations  the  Ambulance  will  be  compelled  to 
withdraw  its  services,  he  replies  with  delicious  sar- 
casm, " Nous  n'avons  pas  prevu  ga" 

In  the  end  you  are  referred  to  the  Secretary  in 
his  bureau.  He  grasps  the  situation  and  is  urbanity 
itself.  Provided  with  a  special  permit  bearing  his 
sacred  signature,  you  are  Admitted  by  the  other 
door. 

Your  passage  to  the  Vestiaire  takes  you  through 
the  infants'  room  and  along  the  galleries  past  the 
wards.  The  crowd  of  refugees  is  so  great  that  beds 
have  been  put  up  in  the  galleries.  You  take  off  your 
outer  garments  and  put  on  the  Belgian  Red  Cross 
uniform  (you  have  realized  by  this  time  that  your 
charming  white  overall  and  veil  are  sanitary  pre- 
cautions ) . 

Coming  down  the  wide  wooden  stairways  you 
have  a  full  view  of  the  Inner  Hall.  This  enormous 
oblong  space  below  the  galleries  is  the  heart,  the 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       73 

fervid  central  foyer  of  the  Palais  des  Fetes.  At 
either  end  of  it  is  an  immense  auditorium,  tier  above 
tier  of  seats,  rising  towards  the  gallery  floors.  All 
down  each  side  of  it,  standards  with  triumphal  de- 
vices are  tilted  from  the  balustrade.  Banners  hang 
from  the  rafters. 

And  under  them,  down  the  whole  length  of  the 
hall  from  auditorium  to  auditorium,  the  tables  are 
set  out.  Bare  wooden  tables,  one  after  another, 
more  tables  than  you  can  count. 

From  the  door  of  the  sleeping-hall  to  each  audi- 
torium, and  from  each  auditorium  down  the  line  of 
the  tables  a  gangway  is  roped  off  for  the  passage  of 
the  refugees. 

They  say  there  are  ten  thousand  five  hundred  here 
to-night.  Beyond  the  rope-line,  along  the  inner  hall, 
more  straw  has  been  laid  down  to  bed  the  overflow 
from  the  outer  hall.  They  come  on  in  relays  to  be 
fed.  They  are  marshalled  first  into  the  seats  of 
each  auditorium,  where  they  sit  like  the  spectators 
of  some  monstrous  festival  and  wait  for  their  turn 
at  the  tables. 

This,  the  long  procession  of  people  streaming  in 
without  haste,  in  perfect  order  and  submission,  is 
heart-rending  if  you  like.  The  immensity  of  the 
crowd  no  longer  overpowers  you.  The  barriers 
make  it  a  steady  procession,  a  credible  spectacle. 


74      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

You  can  take  it  in.  It  is  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  in 
your  heart.  They  come  on  so  slowly  that  you  can 
count  them  as  they  come.  They  have  sorted  them- 
selves out.  The  fathers  and  the  mothers  are  to- 
gether, they  lead  their  little  children  by  the  hand  or 
push  them  gently  before  them.  There  is  no  antici- 
pation in  their  eyes ;  no  eagerness  and  no  impatience 
in  their  bearing.  They  do  not  hustle  each  other  or 
scramble  for  their  places.  It  is  their  silence  and 
submission  that  you  cannot  stand. 

For  you  have  a  moment  of  dreadful  inactivity 
after  the  setting  of  the  tables  for  the  premier  service. 
You  have  filled  your  bowls  with  black  coffee ;  some- 
body else  has  laid  the  slices  of  white  bread  on  the 
bare  tables.  You  have  nothing  to  do  but  stand  still 
and  see  them  file  in  to  the  banquet.  On  the  banners 
and  standards  from  the  roof  and  balustrades  the 
Lion  of  Flanders  ramps  over  their  heads.  And 
somewhere  in  the  back  of  your  brain  a  song  sings 
itself  to  a  tune  that  something  in  your  brain  wakes 
up: 

Us  ne  vont  pas  dompter 
Le  vieux  lion  de  Flandres, 
Tant  que  le  lion  a  des  dents, 
Tant  que  le  lion  peut  griff er. 

It  is  the  song  the  Belgian  soldiers  sang  as  they 
marched  to  battle  in  the  first  week  of  August.  It 
is  only  the  end  of  September  now. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       75 

And  somebody  standing  beside  you  says :  "  C'est 
triste,  n'est-ce  pasf" 

You  cannot  look  any  more. 

At  the  canteen  the  men  are  pouring  out  coffee 
from  enormous  enamelled  jugs  into  the  small  jugs 
that  the  waitresses  bring.  This  wastes  your  time 
and  cools  the  coffee.  So  you  take  a  big  jug  from 
the  men.  It  seems  to  you  no  heavier  than  an  ordi- 
nary teapot.  And  you  run  with  it.  To  carry  the 
largest  possible  jug  at  the  swiftest  possible  pace  is 
your  only  chance  of  keeping  sane.  (It  isn't  till  it 
is  all  over  that  you  hear  the  whisper  of  "  Anglaise! " 
and  realize  how  very  far  from  sane  you  must  have 
looked  running  round  with  your  enormous  jug.)1 
You  can  fill  up  the  coffee  bowls  again  —  the  little 
bowls  full,  the  big  bowls  only  half  full;  there  is 
more  than  enough  coffee  to  go  round.  But  there  is 
no  milk  except  for  the  babies.  And  when  they  ask 
you  for  more  bread  there  is  not  enough  to  go  twice 
round.  The  ration  is  now  two  slices  of  dry  bread 
and  a  bowl  of  black  coffee  three  times  a  day.  Till 
yesterday  there  was  an  allowance  of  meat  for  soup 
at  the  mid-day  meal ;  to-day  the  army  has  comman- 
deered all  the  meat. 

But  you  needn't  stand  still  any  more.  After  the 
first  service  the  bowls  have  to  be  cleared  from  the 
tables  and  washed  and  laid  ready  for  the  next. 


76      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

Round  the  great  wooden  tubs  there  is  a  frightful 
competition.  It  is  who  can  wash  and  dry  and  carry 
back  the  quickest.  You  contend  with  brawny 
Flemish  women  for  the  first  dip  into  the  tub  and  the 
driest  towel.  Then  you  race  round  the  tables  with 
your  pile  of  crockery,  and  then  with  your  jug,  and 
so  on  over  and  over  again  for  three  hours,  till  the  last 
relay  is  fed  and  the  tables  are  deserted.  You  wash 
up  again  and  it  is  all  over  for  you  till  six  o'clock  to- 
morrow evening. 

You  go  back  to  your  mess-room  and  a  ten-o'clock 
supper  of  cold  coffee  and  sandwiches  and  Belgian 
current  loaf  eaten  with  butter.  And  in  a  night- 
mare afterwards  Belgian  refugees  gather  round  you 
and  pluck  at  your  sleeve  and  cry  to  you  for  more 
bread :  "  Une  petite  tranche  de  pain,  s'il  vous  plait, 
mademoiselle!" 

[Wednesday,  30^.] 

No  Germans,  nor  sign  of  Germans  yet. 

Fighting  is  reported  at  Saint  Nicolas,  between 
Antwerp  and  Ghent.  The  Commandant  has  an 
idea.  He  says  that  if  the  Belgian  Army  has  to  meet 
the  Germans  at  Saint  Nicolas,  so  as  to  cut  off  their 
advance  on  Antwerp,  the  base  hospital  must  be  re- 
moved from  Ghent  to  some  centre  or  point  which 
will  bring  the  Ambulance  behind  the  Belgian  lines. 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      77 

He  thinks  that  working  from  Ghent  would  neces- 
sarily bring  it  behind  the  German  lines.  This  is 
assuming  that  the  Germans  coming  up  from  the 
southeast  will  cut  in  between  Saint  Nicolas  and 
Ghent. 

He  consults  the  President,  who  apparently  thinks 
that  the  base  hospital  will  do  very  well  where  it  is. 

[2.30-] 

MRS.  TORRENCE  brought  her  Colonel  in  to  lunch. 
He  is  battered  and  grizzled,  but  still  a  fine  figure 
in  the  dark-green  uniform  of  the  Motor  Cyclist 
Corps.  He  is  very  polite  and  gallant  a  la  beige  and 
vows  that  he  has  taken  on  Mrs.  Torrence  pour  tou- 
jours,  pour  la  vie!  She  diverts  the  flow  of  urbanity 
adroitly. 

Except  the  Colonel  nothing  noteworthy  seems  to 
have  occurred  to-day.  The  three  hours  at  the  Palais 
des  Fetes  were  like  the  three  hours  last  night. 

[Thursday,  October  ist.] 

IT  really  isn't  safe  for  the  Commandant  to  go  out 
with  Ursula  Dearmer.  For  her  luck  in  the  matter 
of  bombardments  continues.  (He  might  just  as 
well  be  with  Mrs.  Torrence.)  They  have  been  at 
Termonde.  What  is  more,  it  was  Ursula  Dearmer 


who  got  them  through,  in  spite  of  the  medical  mili- 
tary officer  whose  vigorous  efforts  stopped  them  at 
the  barrier.  He  seems  at  one  point  to  have  shown 
weakness  and  given  them  leave  to  go  on  a  little  way 
up  the  road ;  and  the  little  way  seems  to  have  carried 
them  out  of  his  sight  and  onward  till  they  encoun- 
tered the  Colonel  (or  it  may  have  been  a  General) 
in  command.  The  Colonel  (or  the  General)  seems 
to  have  broken  down  very  badly,  for  the  car  and 
Ursula  Dearmer  and  the  Commandant  went  on  to- 
wards Termonde.  Young  Haynes  was  with  them 
this  time,  and  on  the  way  they  had  picked  up  Mr. 

G.  L ,  War  Correspondent  to  the  Daily  Mail  and 

Westminster.  They  left  the  car  behind  somewhere 
in  a  safe  place  where  the  fire  from  the  machine-guns 
couldn't  reach  it.  There  is  a  street  or  a  road  —  I 
can't  make  out  whether  it  is  inside  or  outside  the 
town;  it  leads  straight  to  the  bridge  over  the  river, 
which  is  about  as  wide  there  as  the  Thames  at  West- 
minster. The  bridge  is  the  key  to  the  position ;  it  has 
been  blown  up  and  built  again  several  times  in  the 
course  of  the  War,  and  the  Germans  are  now  en- 
trenched beyond  it.  The  road  had  been  raked  by 
their  mitrailleuses  the  day  before. 

It  seems  to  have  struck  the  four  simultaneously 
that  it  would  be  quite  a  good  thing  to  walk 
down  this  road  on  the  off-chance  of  the  machine- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       79 

guns  opening  fire  again.  The  tale  told  by  the  Com- 
mandant evokes  an  awful  vision  of  them  walking 
down  it,  four  abreast,  the  Commandant  and  Mr.  G. 

L on  the  outside,  fairly  under  shelter,  and 

Ursula  Dearmer  and  young  Haynes  a  little  in  front 
of  them  down  the  middle,  where  the  fire  comes,  when 
it  does  come.  This  spectacle  seems  to  have  shaken 
the  Commandant  in  his  view  of  bombarded  towns 
as  suitable  places  of  amusement  for  young  girls. 
Young  Haynes  ought  to  have  known  better.  You 
tell  him  that  as  long  as  the  world  endures  young 
Haynes  will  be  young  Haynes,  and  if  there  is  dan- 
ger in  the  middle  of  the  road,  it  is  there  that  he  will 
walk  by  preference.  And  as  no  young  woman  of 
modern  times  is  going  to  let  herself  be  outdone  by 
young  Haynes,  you  must  expect  to  find  Ursula  Dear- 
mer in  the  middle  of  the  road  too.  You  cannot  sup- 
press this  competitive  heroism  of  young  people. 
The  roots  strike  too  deep  down  in  human  nature. 
In  the  modern  young  man  and  woman  competitive 
heroism  has  completely  forgotten  its  origin  and  is 
now  an  end  in  itself. 

And  if  it  comes  to  that  —  how  about  Alost? 

At  the  mention  of  Alost  the  Commandant's  face 
becomes  childlike  again  in  its  utter  simplicity  and 
innocence  and  candour.  Alost  was  a  very  different 
thing.  Looking  for  shells  at  Alost,  you  understand, 


8O      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

was  like  looking  for  shells  on  the  seashore.  At 
Alost  Ursula  Dearmer  was  in  no  sort  of  danger. 
For  at  Alost  she  was  under  the  Commandant's  wing 
(young  Haynes  hasn't  got  any  wings,  only  legs  to 
walk  into  the  line  of  fire  on).  He  explains  very 
carefully  that  he  took  her  under  his  wing  because  she 
is  a  young  girl  and  he  feels  responsible  for  her  to  her 
mother. 

(Which,  oddly  enough,  is  just  how  /  feel!) 

As  for  young  Haynes,  I  suppose  he  would  plead 
that  when  he  and  Ursula  Dearmer  walked  down  the 
middle  of  the  road  there  was  no  firing. 

That  seems  to  have  been  young  Haynes's  par- 
ticular good  fortune.  I  have  now  a  perfect  obses- 
sion of  responsibility.  I  see,  in  one  dreadful  vision 
after  another,  the  things  that  must  happen  to  Ursula 
Dearmer  under  the  Commandant's  wing,  and  to 
young  Haynes  and  the  Commandant  under  Ursula 
Dearmer's. 

No  wounded  were  found,  this  time,  at  Termonde. 

This  little  contretemps  with  the  Commandant  has 
made  me  forget  to  record  a  far  more  notable  event. 

Mrs.  Torrence  brought  young  Lieutenant  G in 

to  luncheon.  He  is  the  hero  of  the  Belgian  Motor 
Cyclist  Corps.  He  is  said  to  have  accounted  for 
nine  Germans  with  his  own  rifle  in  one  morning. 
The  Corps  has  already  intimated  that  this  is  the  first 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       8 1 

well-defined  specimen  of  a  man  it  has  yet  seen  in 
Belgium.  His  dark-green  uniform  fits  him  exceed- 
ingly well. .  He  is  tall  and  handsome.  Drenched  in 
the  glamour  of  the  greatest  possible  danger,  he  gives 
it  off  like  a  subtle  essence.  As  he  was  led  in  he  had 
rather  the  air,  the  slightly  awkward,  puzzled  and  em- 
barrassed air,  of  being  on  show  as  a  fine  specimen  of 
a  man.  But  it  very  soon  wore  off.  In  the  absence 
of  the  Commandant  he  sat  in  the  Commandant's 
place,  so  magnificent  a  figure  that  our  mess,  with 
gaps  at  every  table,  looked  like  a  banquet  given  in 
his  honour,  a  banquet  whose  guests  had  been  deci- 
mated by  some  catastrophe. 

Suddenly  —  whether  it  was  the  presence  of  the 
Lieutenant  or  the  absence  of  the  Commandant,  or 
merely  reaction  from  the  strain  of  inactivity,  I  don't 
know,  but  suddenly  madness  came  upon  our  mess. 
The  mess-room  was  no  longer  a  mess-room  in  a  Mili- 
tary Hospital,  but  a  British  school-room.  Mrs.  Tor- 
rence  had  changed  her  woollen  cap  for  a  grey  felt 
wide-awake.  She  was  no  longer  an  Arctic  explorer, 
but  the  wild-western  cowboy  of  British  melodrama. 
She  was  the  first  to  go  mad.  One  moment  she  was 
seated  decorously  at  the  Lieutenant's  right  hand ;  the 
next  she  was  strolling  round  the  tables  with  an  air 
of  innocent  abstraction,  having  armed  herself  in 
secret  with  the  little  hard  round  rolls  supplied  by  or- 


82      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

der  of  the  Commandant.  Each  little  roll  became  a. 
deadly  obus  in  her  hand.  She  turned.  Her  inno- 
cent abstraction  was  intense  as  she  poised  herself  to 
aim. 

With  a  shout  of  laughter  Dr.  Bird  ducked  behind 
the  cover  of  his  table-napkin. 

I  had  a  sudden  memory  of  Mrs.  Torrence  in  com- 
mand of  the  party  at  Ostend,  a  figure  of  austere 
duty,  of  inexorable  propriety,  rigid  with  the  disci- 
pline of  the Hospital,  restraining  the  criminal 

levity  of  the  Red  Cross  volunteer  who  would  look 
or  dream  of  looking  at  Ostend  Cathedral.  Mrs. 
Torrence,  like  a  seven-year-old  child  meditating  mis- 
chief, like  a  baby  panther  at  play,  like  a  very  young 
and  very  engaging  demon  let  loose,  is  looking  at  Dr. 
Bird.  He  is  not  a  Cathedral,  but  he  suffered  bom- 
bardment all  the  same.  She  got  his  range  with  a 
roll.  She  landed  her  shell  in  the  very  centre  of  his 
waistcoat. 

Her  madness  entered  into  Dr.  Bird.  He  replied 
with  a  spirited  fire  which  fell  wide  of  her  and  bat- 
tered the  mess-room  door.  The  orderlies  retreated 
for  shelter  into  the  vestibule  beyond.  Jean  was  the 
first  to  penetrate  the  line  of  fire.  Max  followed 
him. 

Madness  entered  into  Max.  He  ceased  to  be  a 
hospital  orderly.  He  became  Prosper  Panne  again, 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      83 

the  very  young  collegien,  as  he  put  down  his  dishes 
and  glided  unobtrusively  into  the  affair. 

And  then  the  young  Belgian  Lieutenant  went  mad. 
But  he  gave  way  by  degrees.  At  first  he  sat  up 
straight  and  stiff  with  polite  astonishment  before  the 
spectacle  of  a  British  "  rag."  He  paid  the  dubious 
tribute  of  a  weak  giggle  to  the  bombardment  of  Dr. 
Bird.  He  was  convulsed  at  the  first  performance  of 
Prosper  Panne.  In  his  final  collapse  he  was  rock- 
ing to  and  fro  and  crowing  with  helpless,  hysterical 
laughter. 

For  with  the  entrance  of  Prosper  Panne  the  mess- 
room  became  a  scene  at  the  Folies  Bergeres.  There 
was  Mrs.  Torrence,  premiere  comedienne,  in  the  cos- 
tume of  a  wild-western  cowboy;  there  was  the  young 
Lieutenant  himself,  looking  like  a  stage-lieutenant  in 
the  dark-green  uniform  of  the  Belgian  Motor  Cyclist 
Corps ;  and  there  was  Prosper  Panne.  He  began  by 
picking  up  Mrs.  Torrence's  brown  leather  motor 
glove  with  its  huge  gauntlet,  and  examining  it  with 
the  deliciously  foolish  bewilderment  of  the  accom- 
plished clown.  After  one  or  two  failures,  brilliantly 
improvised,  he  fixed  it  firmly  on  his  head.  The  huge 
gauntlet,  with  its  limp  five  fingers  dangling  over  his 
left  ear,  became  a  rakish  kepi  with  a  five-pointed 
flap.  Max  —  I  mean  Prosper  Panne  —  wore  it 
with  an  "  air  impayable"  Out  of  his  round,  soft, 


84      A   JOURNAL  OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

putty-coloured  face  he  made  fifteen  other  faces  in 
rapid  succession,  all  incomparably  absurd.  He  lit  a 
cigarette  and  held  it  between  his  lower  lip  and  his 
chin.  The  effect  was  of  a  miraculous  transforma- 
tion of  those  features,  in  which  his  upper  lip  dis- 
appeared altogether,  his  lower  lip  took  on  its  func- 
tions, while  his  chin  ceased  to  be  a  chin  and  became 
a  lower  lip.  With  this  achievement  Prosper  Panne 
had  his  audience  in  the  hollow  of  his  hands.  He 
could  do  what  he  liked  with  it.  He  did.  He 
caused  his  motor-glove  cap  to  fall  from  his  head 
as  if  by  some  mysterious  movement  of  its  own. 
Then  he  went  round  the  stalls  and  gravely  and 
earnestly  removed  all  our  hats.  With  an  air  more 
and  more  ee  im  pay  able  "  he  wore  each  one  of  them 
in  turn  —  the  grey  felt  wide-awake  of  the  wild- 
western  cowboy,  the  knitted  Jaeger  head-gear  of 
the  little  Arctic  explorer,  the  dark-blue  military  cap 
with  the  red  tassel  assumed  by  Dr.  Bird,  even  the 
green  cap  with  the  winged  symbol  of  the  young 
Belgian  officer.  By  this  time  the  young  Belgian 
officer  was  so  entirely  the  thrall  of  Prosper  Panne 
that  he  didn't  turn  a  hair. 

Flushed  with  success,  Max  rose  to  his  top-notch. 
Moving  slowly  towards  the  open  door  (centre) 
with  his  back  to  his  audience  and  his  head  turned 
towards  it  over  his  left  shoulder,  by  some  extraor- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      85 

dinary  dislocation  of  his  hip-joints,  he  achieved 
the  immemorial  salutation  of  the  Folies  Bergeres  — 
the  last  faint  survival  of  the  Old  Athenian  Comedy. 
Up  till  now  Jean  had  affected  to  ignore  the  per- 
'formance  of  his  colleague.  But  under  this  supreme 
provocation  he  yielded  to  the  Aristophanic  impulse, 
and  —  exit  Max  in  the  approved  manner  of  the 
'Folies  Bergeres. 

It  is  all  over.  The  young  Belgian  officer  has 
flown  away  on  his  motor  cycle  to  pot  Germans; 
Mrs.  Torrence  has  gone  off  to  the  field  with  the 
Colonel  on  the  quest  of  the  greatest  possible  danger. 
The  Ambulance  has  followed  them  there. 

I  am  in  the  mess-room,  sitting  at  the  disordered 
table  and  gazing  at  the  ruins  of  our  mess.  I  hear 
again  the  wild  laughter  of  the  mess-mates;  it 
mingles  with  the  cry  of  the  refugees  in  the  Palais 
des  Fetes :  "  Une  petite  tranche  de  pain,  s'il  vous 
plait,  mademoiselle!" 

C'est  triste,  n'est-ce  pas? 

In  the  chair  by  the  window  Max  lies  back  with 
his  loose  boyish  legs  extended  limply  in  front  of 
him;  his  round,  close-cropped  head  droops  to  his 
shoulder,  his  round  face  (the  face  of  a  very  young 
collegien)  is  white,  the  features  are  blurred  and 
inert.  Max  is  asleep  with  his  dish-cloth  in  his  hand, 


86      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

in  the  sudden,  pathetic  sleep  of  exhaustion.  After 
his  brief,  funny  madness,  he  is  asleep.  Jean  comes 
and  looks  at  him  and  shakes  his  head.  You  under- 
stand from  Jean  that  Max  goes  mad  like  that  now 
and  then  on  purpose,  so  that  he  may  forget  in  what 
manner  his  mother  went  mad. 

We  go  quietly  so  as  not  to  wake  him  a  minute 
too  soon,  lest  when  he  wakes  he  should  remember. 

There  is  a  Taube  hovering  over  Ghent. 

Up  there,  in  the  clear  blue  sky  it  looks  innocent, 
like  an  enormous  greyish  blond  dragon-fly  hovering 
over  a  pond.  You  stare  at  it,  fascinated,  as  you 
stare  at  a  hawk  that  hangs  in  mid-air,  steadied  by 
the  vibration  of  its  wings,  watching  its  prey. 

You  are  not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  the  watch- 
ing Taube.  An  aeroplane,  dropping  a  few  bombs, 
is  nothing  to  what  goes  on  down  there  where  the 
ambulances  are. 

The  ambulances  Have  come  back.  I  go  out  into 
the  yard  to  look  at  them.  They  are  not  always  nice 
to  look  at;  the  floors  and  steps  would  make  you 
shudder  if  you  were  not  past  shuddering. 

I  have  found  something  to  do.  Not  much,  but 
still  something.  I  am  to  look  after  the  linen  for 
the  ambulances,  to  take  away  the  blood-stained 
pillow-slips  and  blankets,  and  deliver  them  at  the 
laundry  and  get  clean  ones  from  the  linen-room. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      8? 

It's  odd,  but  I'm  almost  foolishly  elated  at  being 
allowed  to  do  this.  We  are  still  more  or  less 
weighed  down  by  the  sense  of  our  uselessness. 
Even  the  Chaplain,  though  his  services  as  a  stretcher- 
bearer  have  been  definitely  recognized  —  even  the 
Chaplain  continues  to  suffer  in  this  way.  He  has 
just  come  to  me  to  tell  me  with  pride  that  he  is 
making  a  good  job  of  the  stretchers  he  has  got  to 
mend. 

Then,  just  as  I  am  beginning  to  lift  up  my  head, 
the  blow  falls.  Not  one  member  of  the  Field 
Ambulance  Corps  is  to  be  allowed  to  work  at  the 
Palais  des  Fetes,  for  fear  of  bringing  fever  into 
the  Military  Hospital.  And  here  we  are,  exactly 
where  we  were  at  the  beginning  of  the  week,  Mrs. 
Lambert,  Janet  McNeil  and  I,  three  women  out  of 
five,  with  nothing  to  do  and  two  convalescent  or- 
derlies waiting  on  us.  If  I  could  please  myself  I 
would  tuck  Max  up  in  bed  and  wait  on  hint. 

In  spite  of  the  ambulance  linen,  this  is  the  worst 
day  of  all  for  the  wretched  Secretary  and  Reporter. 
Five  days  in  Ghent  and  not  a  thing  done;  not  a 
line  written  of  those  brilliant  articles  (from  the 
Front)  which  were  to  bring  in  money  for  the  Corps. 
To  have  nothing  to  do  but  hang  about  the  Hospital 
on  the  off-chance  of  the  Commandant  coming  back 
unexpectedly  and  wanting  a  letter  written;  to  pass 


88      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

the  man  with  the  bullet  wound  in  his  mouth  a  dozen 
times  a  day  (he  is  getting  very  slowly  better;  his 
poor  face  was  a  little  more  human  this  morning) ; 
to  see  the  maimed  and  crippled  men  trailing  and 
hobbling  about  the  hall,  and  the  wounded  carried 
in  on  their  stretchers  —  dripping  stretchers,  ago- 
nized bodies,  limbs  rolled  in  bandages,  blood  oozing 
through  the  bandages,  heads  bound  with  bandages, 
bandages  glued  tight  to  the  bone  with  blood  —  to 
see  all  this  and  be  utterly  powerless  to  help;  to  en- 
dure, day  after  day,  the  blank,  blond  horror  of  the 
empty  mess-room;  to  sit  before  a  marble-topped 
table  with  a  bad  pen,  never  enough  paper  and 
hardly  any  ink,  and  nothing  at  all  to  write  about, 
while  all  the  time  the  names  of  places,  places  you 
have  not  seen  and  never  will  see  —  Termonde, 
Alost,  Quatrecht  and  Courtrai  —  go  on  sounding 
in  your  brain  with  a  maddening,  luring  reiteration ; 
to  sit  in  a  hateful  inactivity,  and  a  disgusting,  an 
intolerable  safety,  and  to  be  haunted  by  a  vision  of 
two  figures,  intensely  clear  on  a  somewhat  vague 
background  —  Mrs.  Torrence  following  her  star  of 
the  greatest  possible  danger,  and  Ursula  Dearmer 
wandering  in  youth  and  innocence  among  the  shells  ; 
to  be  obliged  to  think  of  Ursula  Dearmer's  mother 
when  you  would  much  rather  not  think  of  her;  to 
be  profoundly  and  irrevocably  angry  with  the  guile- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       89 

less  Commandant,  whom  at  the  moment  you  regard 
(it  may  be  perversely)  as  the  prime  agent  in  this 
fatuous  sacrifice  of  women's  lives;  to  want  to  stop 
it  and  to  be  unable  to  stop  it,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  feel  a  brute  because  you  want  to  stop  it  —  when 
they  are  enjoying  the  adventure  —  I  can  only  say 
of  the  experience  that  I  hope  there  is  no  depth  of 
futility  deeper  than  this  to  come.  You  might  as 
well  be  taken  prisoner  by  the  Germans  —  better, 
since  that  would,  at  least,  give  you  something  to 
write  about  afterwards. 

What's  more,  I'm  bored. 

When  I  told  the  Commandant  all  this  he  looked 
very  straight  at  me  and  said,  "  Then  you'd  better 
come  with  us  to  Termonde."  So  straight  he  looked 
that  the  suggestion  struck  me  less  as  a  bona  fide 
offer  than  an  ironic  reference  to  my  five  weeks' 
funk. 

I  don't  tell  him  that  that  is  precisely  what  I  want 
to  do.  That  his  wretched  Reporter  nourishes  an 
insane  ambition  —  not  to  become  a  Special  Cor- 
respondent; not  to  career  under  massive  headlines 
in  the  columns  of  the  Daily  Mail;  not  to  steal  a 
march  on  other  War  Correspondents  and  secure  the 
one  glorious  "  scoop  "  of  the  campaign.  Not  any 
of  these  sickly  and  insignificant  things.  But  —  in 
defiance  of  Tom,  the  chauffeur  —  to  go  out  with  the 


90      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

Field  Ambulance  as  an  ambulanctire,  and  hunt  for 
wounded  men,  and  in  the  intervals  of  hunting  to 
observe  the  orbit  of  a  shell  and  the  manner  of 
shrapnel  in  descending.  To  be  left  behind,  every 
day,  in  an  empty  mess-room,  with  a  bad  pen,  ut- 
terly deprived  of  copy  or  of  any  substitute  for  copy, 
and  to  have  to  construct  war  articles  out  of  your 
inner  consciousness,  would  be  purgatory  for  a  jour- 
nalist. But  to  have  a  mad  dream  in  your  soul  and 
a  pair  of  breeches  in  your  hold-all,  and  to  see  no 
possibility  of  "  sporting  "  either,  is  the  very  refine- 
ment of  hell.  And  your  tortures  will  be  unbear- 
able if,  at  the  same  time,  you  have  to  hold  your 
tongue  about  them  and  pretend  that  you  are  a  gen- 
uine reporter  and  that  all  you  want  is  copy  and  your 
utmost  aim  the  business  of  the  "  scoop." 

After  a  week  of  it  you  will  not  be  likely  to  look 
with  crystal  clarity  on  other  people's  lapses  from 
precaution. 

But  it  would  be  absurd  to  tell  him  this.  Ten  to 
one  he  wouldn't  believe  it.  He  thinks  I  am  funk- 
ing all  the  time. 

I  am  still  very  angry  with  him.  He  must  know 
that  I  am  very  angry.  I  think  that  somewhere  in- 
side him  he  is  rather  angry  too. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      QI 

All  the  same  he  has  come  to  me  and  asked  me 
to  give  him  my  soap.  He  says  Max  has  taken  his. 

I  give  him  my  soap,  but  — 

These  oppressions  and  obsessions,  the  deadly 
anxiety,  the  futile  responsibility  and  the  boredom 
are  too  much  for  me.  I  am  thinking  seriously  of 
going  home. 

In  the  evening  we  —  the  Commandant  and  Janet 
McNeil  and  I  —  went  down  to  the  Hotel  de  la 
Poste,  to  see  the  War  Correspondents  and  hear  the 
War  news.  Mr.  G.  L.  and  Mr.  M.  and  Mr.  P. 
were  there.  And  there  among  them,  to  my  aston- 
ishment, I  found  Mr.  Davidson,  the  American  sculp- 
tor. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Davidson  it  was  in  Mr. 
Joseph  Simpson's  studio,  the  one  under  mine  in 
Edwardes  Square.  He  was  making  a  bust  of 
Rabindranath  Tagore;  and  as  the  great  mystic  poet 
disconcerted  him  by  continually  lapsing  into  medita- 
tion under  this  process,  thereby  emptying  his  beau- 
tiful face  of  all  expression  whatever,  I  had  been 
called  down  from  my  studio  to  talk  to  him,  so  as 
to  lure  him,  if  possible,  from  meditation  and  keep 
his  features  in  play.  Mr.  Davidson  made  a  very 
fine  bust  of  Rabindranath  Tagore.  And  here  he 
is,  imperfectly  disguised  by  the  shortest  of  short 


92       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

beards,  drawing  caricatures  of  G.  L. —  G.  L.  ex- 
plaining the  plan  of  campaign  to  the  Belgian  Gen- 
eral Staff;  G.  L.  very  straight  and  tall,  the  Bel- 
gian General  Staff  looking  up  to  him  with  innocent, 
deferential  faces,  earnestly  anxious  to  be  taught. 
I  am  not  more  surprised  at  seeing  Mr.  Davidson 
here  than  he  is  at  seeing  me.  In  the  world  that 
makes  war  we  have  both  entirely  forgotten  the 
world  where  people  make  busts  and  pictures  and 
books.  But  we  accept  each  other's  presence.  It  is 
only  a  small  part  of  the  fantastic  dislocation  of  war. 
Nothing  could  be  more  different  from  the  Flan- 
dria  Palace  Hotel,  our  Military  Hospital,  than  the 
Hotel  de  la  Poste.  It  is  packed  with  War  Cor- 
respondents and  Belgian  officers.  After  the  sur- 
geons and  the  Red  Cross  nurses  and  their  wounded, 
and  the  mysterious  officials  hanging  about  the  porch 
and  the  hall,  apparently  doing  nothing,  after  the 
English  Ambulance  and  the  melancholy  inactivity 
of  half  its  Corps,  this  place  seems  alive  with  a  rich 
and  virile  life.  It  is  full  of  live,  exultant  fighters, 
and  of  men  who  have  their  business  not  with  the 
wounded  and  the  dying  but  with  live  men  and  live 
things,  and  they  have  live  words  to  tell  about  them. 
At  least  so  it  seems. 

You  listen  with  all  your  ears,  and  presently  Ter- 
monde  and  Alost  and  Quatrecht  and  Courtrai  cease 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      93 

to  be  mere  names  for  you  and  become  realities.  It 
is  as  if  you  had  been  taken  from  your  prison  and 
had  been  let  loose  into  the  world  again. 

They  are  saying  that  there  is  no  fighting  at  Saint 
Nicolas  (the  Commandant  has  been  feeling  about 
again  for  his  visionary  base  hospital),  but  that  the 
French  troops  are  at  Courtrai  in  great  force.  They 
have  turned  their  left  [  ?]  wing  round  to  the  north- 
east and  will  probably  sweep  towards  Brussels  to 
cut  off  the  German  advance  on  Antwerp.  The 
siege  of  Antwerp  will  then  be  raised.  And  a  great 
battle  will  be  fought  outside  Brussels,  probably  at 
Waterloo. 

WATERLOO  ! 

Mr.  L.  looks  at  you  as  much  as  to  say  that  is 
what  he  has  had  up  his  sleeve  all  the  time.  The 
word  comes  from  him  as  casually  as  if  he  spoke 
of  the  London  and  South -Western  terminus.  But 
he  is  alive  to  the  power  of  its  evocation,  to  the  un- 
surpassable thrill.  So  are  you.  It  starts  the  cur- 
rent in  that  wireless  system  of  vibrations  that  travel 
unperishing,  undiminished,  from  the  dead  to  the 
living.  There  are  not  many  kilometres  between 
Ghent  and  Waterloo;  you  are  not  only  within  the 
radius  of  the  psychic  shock,  you  are  close  to  the 
central  batteries,  and  ninety-nine  years  are  no  more 
than  one  pulse  of  their  vibration.  Through  I  don't 


94 

know  how  many  kilometres  and  ninety-nine  years  it 
has  tracked  you  down  and  found  you  in  your  one 
moment  of  response. 

It  has  a  sudden  steadying  effect.  Your  brain 
clears.  The  things  that  loomed  so  large,  the  "  Flan- 
dria,"  and  the  English  Field  Ambulance  and  its 
miseries,  and  the  terrifying  recklessness  of  its  Com- 
mandant, are  reduced  suddenly  to  invisibility.  You 
can  see  nothing  but  the  second  Waterloo.  You 
forget  that  you  have  ever  been  a  prisoner  in  an 
Hotel-Hospital.  You  understand  the  mystic  fas- 
cination of  the  road  under  your  windows,  going 
south-east  from  Ghent  to  Brussels,  somewhere  to- 
wards Waterloo.  You  are  reconciled  to  the  in- 
comprehensible lassitude  of  events.  That  is  what 
we  have  all  been  waiting  for  —  the  second  Waterloo. 
And  we  have  only  waited  five  days. 

I  am  certainly  not  going  back  to  England. 

The  French  troops  are  being  massed  at  Courtrai. 

Suddenly  it  strikes  me  that  I  have  done  an  in- 
justice to  the  Commandant.  It  is  all  very  well  to 
say  that  he  brought  me  out  here  against  my  will. 
But  did  he?  He  said  it  would  interest  me  to  see 
the  siege  of  Antwerp,  and  I  said  it  wouldn't.  I 
said  with  the  most  perfect  sincerity  that  I'd  die 
rather  than  go  anywhere  near  the  siege  of  Antwerp, 
or  of  any  other  place.  And  now  the  siege-guns 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      95 

from  Namur  are  battering  the  forts  of  Antwerp, 
and  down  there  the  armies  are  gathering  towards 
the  second  Waterloo,  and  the  Commandant  was 
right.  I  am  extremely  interested.  I  would  die 
rather  than  go  back  to  England. 

Is  it  possible  that  he  knew  me  better  than  I  knew 
myself? 

When  I  think  that  it  is  possible  I  feel  a  slight 
revulsion  of  justice  towards  the  Commandant. 
After  all,  he  brought  me  here.  We  may  disagree 
about  the  present  state  of  Alost  and  Termonde, 
considered  as  health-resorts  for  English  girls,  but 
it  is  pretty  certain  that  without  him  we  would  none 
of  us  have  got  here.  Where,  indeed,  should  we 
have  been  and  how  should  we  have  got  our  motor 
ambulances,  but  for  his  intrepid  handling  of  Provi- 
dence and  of  the  Belgian  Red  Cross  and  the  Belgian 
Legation?  There  is  genius  in  a  man  who  can  go 
out  without  one  car,  or  the  least  little  nut  or  cog 
of  a  chassis  to  his  name,  and  impose  himself  upon 
a  Government  as  the  Commandant  of  a  Motor  Field 
Ambulance. 

Still,  though  I  am  not  going  back  to  England  as 
a  protest,  I  am  going  to  leave  the  Hospital  Hotel 
for  a  little  while.  That  bright  idea  has  come  to  me 
just  now  while  we  are  waiting  for  the  Commandant 
to  tear  himself  from  the  War  Correspondents  and 


96      A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

come  away.  I  shall  get  a  room  here  in  the  Hotel 
de  la  Poste  for  a  week,  and,  while  we  wait  for 
Waterloo,  I  shall  write  some  articles.  The  War 
Correspondents  will  tell  me  what  is  being  done, 
and  what  has  been  overdone  and  what  remains 
to  do.  I  shall  at  least  hear  things  if  I  can't  see 
them.  And  I  shall  cut  the  obsession  of  responsi- 
bility. It'll  be  worse  than  ever  if  there  really  is 
going  to  be  a  second  Waterloo. 

Waterloo  with  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Janet  in  the 
thick  of  it,  and  Mrs.  Torrence  driving  the  Colonel's 
scouting-car ! 

There  are  moments  of  bitterness  and  distortion 
when  I  see  the  Commandant  as  a  curious  psychic 
monster  bringing  up  his  women  with  him  to  the 
siege-guns  because  of  some  uncanny  satisfaction 
he  finds  in  their  presence  there.  There  are  moods, 
only  less  perverted,  when  I  see  him  pursuing  his 
course  because  it  is  his  course,  through  sheer  High- 
land Celtic  obstinacy ;  lucid  flashes  when  he  appears, 
blinded  by  the  glamour  of  his  dream,  and  innocently 
regardless  of  actuality.  Is  it  uncanniness?  Is  it 
obstinacy  ?  Is  it  dreamy  innocence  ?  Or  is  it  some 
gorgeous  streak  of  Feminism?  Is  it  the  New 
Chivalry,  that  refuses  to  keep  women  back,  even 
from  the  firing-line?  The  New  Romance,  that 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      97 

gives  them  their  share  of  divine  danger?  Or,  since 
nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  to  suppose  that 
any  person  acts  at  all  times  and  in  all  circumstances 
on  one  ground,  or  necessarily  on  any  grounds,  is 
it  a  little  bit  of  all  these  things?  I  am  not  sure 
that  Feminism,  or  at  any  rate  the  New  Chivalry, 
doesn't  presuppose  them  all. 

The  New  Chivalry  sees  the  point  of  its  reporter's 
retirement  to  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste,  since  it  has 
decided  that  journalism  is  my  work,  and  journalism 
cannot  flourish  at  the  "  Flandria."  So  we  inter- 
view the  nice  fat  proprietaire,  and  the  proprietaire's 
nice  fat  wife,  and  between  them  they  find  a  room 
for  me,  a  back  room  on  the  fourth  floor,  the  only 
one  vacant  in  the  hotel;  it  looks  out  on  the  white- 
tiled  walls  and  the  windows  of  the  enclosing  wings. 
The  space  shut  in  is  deep  and  narrow  as  a  well. 
The  view  from  that  room  is  more  like  a  prison  than 
any  view  from  the  "  Flandria,"  but  I  take  it.  I 
am  not  deceived  by  appearances,  and  I  recognize 
that  the  peace  of  God  is  there. 

It  is  a  relief  to  think  that  poor  Max  will  have  one 
less  to  work  for. 

At  the  "Flandria"  we  find  that  the  Military 
Power  has  put  its  foot  down.  The  General  —  he 
cannot  have  a  spark  of  the  New  Chivalry  in  his 


98      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

brutal  breast  —  has  ordered  Mrs.  Torrence  off  her 
chauffeur's  job.  You  see  the  grizzled  Colonel  as 
the  image  of  protest  and  desolation,  helpless  in  the 
hands  of  the  implacable  Power.  You  are  sorry  for 
Mrs.  Torrence  (she  has  seen  practically  no  service 
with  the  ambulance  as  yet),  but  she,  at  any  rate, 
has  had  her  fling.  No  power  can  take  from  her 
the  memory  of  those  two  days. 

Still,  something  is  going  to  be  done  to-morrow, 
and  this  time,  even  the  miserable  Reporter  is  to  have 
a  look  in.  The  Commandant  has  another  scheme 
for  a  temporary  hospital  or  a  dressing-station  or 
something,  and  to-morrow  he  is  going  with  Car 
i  to  Courtrai  to  reconnoitre  for  a  position  and  in- 
cidentally to  see  the  French  troops.  A  God-sent 
opportunity  for  the  Reporter;  and  Janet  McNeil 
is  going,  too.  We  are  to  get  up  at  six  o'clock  in 
the  morning  and  start  before  seven. 

[Friday,  October  2nd.] 

WE  get  up  at  six. 

We  hang  about  till  eight-thirty  or  nine.  A  fine 
rain  begins  to  fall.  An  ominous  rain.  Car  I  and 
Car  2  are  drawn  up  at  the  far  end  of  the  Hospital 
yard.  The  rain  falls  ominously  over  the  yellow- 
brown,  trodden  clay  of  the  yard.  There  is  an  om- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      99 

inous  look  of  preparation  about  the  cars.  There  is 
also  an  ominous  light  in  the  blue  eyes  of  the  chauf- 
feur Tom. 

The  chauffeur  Tom  appears  as  one  inspired  by 
hatred  of  the  whole  human  race.  You  would  say 
that  he  was  also  hostile  to  the  entire  female  sex. 
For  Woman  in  her  right  place  he  may,  he  probably 
does,  feel  tenderness  and  reverence.  Woman  in  a 
field  ambulance  he  despises  and  abhors.  I  really 
think  it  was  the  sight  of  us  that  accounted  for  his 
depression  at  Ostend.  I  have  gathered  from  Mrs. 
Torrence  that  the  chauffeur  Tom  has  none  of  the 
New  Chivalry  about  him.  He  is  the  mean  and 
brutal  male,  the  crass  obstructionist  who  grudges 
women  their  laurels  in  the  equal  field. 

I  know  the  dreadful,  blasphemous  and  abominable 
things  that  Tom  is  probably  chinking  about  me  as 
I  climb  on  to  his  car.  He  is  visibly  disgusted  with 
his  orders.  That  he,  a  Red  Cross  Field  Ambulance 
chauffeur,  should  be  told  to  drive  four  —  or  is  it 
all  five?  —  women  to  look  at  the  massing  of  the 
French  troops  at  Courtrai!  He  is  not  deceived  by 
the  specious  pretext  of  the  temporary  hospital. 
Hospitals  be  blowed.  It's  a  bloomin'  joy-ride,  with 
about  as  much  Red  Cross  in  it  as  there  is  in  my 
hat.  He  is  glad  that  it  is  raining. 

Yes,  I  know  what  Tom  is  thinking.     And  all 


IOO      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

the  time  I  have  a  sneaking  sympathy  with  Tom. 
I  want  to  go  to  Courtrai  more  than  I  ever  wanted 
anything  in  my  life,  but  I  see  the  expedition  plainly 
from  Tom's  point  of  view.  A  field  ambulance  is 
a  field  ambulance  and  not  a  motor  touring  car. 

And  to-day  Tom  is  justified.  We  have  hardly 
got  upon  his  car  than  we  were  told  to  get  off  it. 
We  are  not  going  to  Courtrai.  We  are  not  going 
anywhere.  From  somewhere  in  those  mysterious 
regions  where  it  abides,  the  Military  Power  has 
come  down. 

Even  as  I  get  off  the  car  and  return  to  the  Hos- 
pital-prison, in  melancholy  retreat  over  the  yellow- 
brown  clay  of  the  yard,  through  the  rain,  I  acknowl- 
edge the  essential  righteousness  of  the  point  of  view. 
And,  to  the  everlasting  honour  of  the  Old  Chivalry, 
it  should  be  stated  that  the  chauffeur  Tom  repressed 
all  open  and  visible  expression  of  his  joy. 

The  morning  passes,  as  the  other  mornings 
passed,  in  unspeakable  inactivity.  Except  that  I 
make  up  the  accounts  and  hand  them  over  to  Mr. 
Grierson.  It  seems  incredible,  but  I  have  balanced 
them  to  the  last  franc. 

I  pack.  Am  surprised  in  packing  by  Max  and 
Jean.  They  both  want  to  know  the  reason  why. 
This  is  the  terrible  part  of  the  business  —  leaving 
Max  and  Jean. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       IOI 

I  try  to  explain.  Prosper  Panne,  who  "  writes 
for  the  Paris  papers,"  understands  me.  He  can  see 
that  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste  may  be  a  better  base  for 
an  attack  upon  the  London  papers.  But  Max  does 
not  understand.  He  perceives  that  I  have  a  scruple 
about  occupying  my  room.  And  he  takes  me  into 
his  room  to  show  me  how  nice  it  is  —  every  bit  as 
good  as  mine.  The  implication  being  that  if  the 
Hospital  can  afford  to  lodge  one  of  its  orderlies  so 
well,  it  can  perfectly  well  afford  to  lodge  me. 
(This  is  one  of  the  prettiest  things  that  Max  has 
done  yet!  As  long  as  I  live  I  shall  see  him  stand- 
ing in  his  room  and  showing  me  how  nice  it  is.) 

Still  you  can  always  appeal  from  Max  to  Prosper 
Panne.  He  understands  these  journalistic  tempers 
and  caprices.  He  knows  on  how  thin  a  thread  an 
article  can  hang.  We  have  a  brief  discussion  on 
the  comparative  difficulties  of  the  roman  and  the 
conte,  and  he  promises  me  to  cherish  and  protect 
the  hat  I  must  leave  behind  me  as  if  it  were  his 
bride. 

But  Jean  —  Jean  does  not  understand  at  all.  He 
thinks  that  I  am  not  satisfied  with  the  service  of 
our  incomparable  mess ;  that  I  prefer  the  flesh-pots 
of  the  "  Poste "  and  the  manners  of  its  waiters. 
He  has  no  other  thought  but  this,  and  it  is  abom- 
inable; it  is  the  worst  of  all.  The  explanation 


IO2       A!  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

thickens.  I  struggle  gloriously  with  the  French 
language;  one  moment  it  has  me  by  the  throat  and 
I  am  strangled ;  the  next  I  writhe  forth  triumphant. 
Strange  gestures  are  given  to  me ;  I  plunge  into  the 
darkest  pits  of  memory  for  the  words  that  have 
escaped  me;  I  find  them  (or  others  just  as  good) ; 
it  is  really  quite  easy  to  say  that  I  am  coming  back 
again  in  a  week. 

Interview  with  Madame  F.  and  M.  G.,  the  Presi- 
dent. 

Interview  with  the  Commandant.  Final  assault 
on  the  defences  of  the  New  Chivalry  (the  Com- 
mandant's mind  is  an  impregnable  fortress)i. 

And,  by  way  of  afterthought,  I  inquire  whether, 
in  the  event  of  a  sudden  scoot  before  the  Germans, 
a  reporter  quartered  at  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste  will 
be  cut  off  from  the  base  of  communications  and 
left  to  his  or  her  ingenuity  in  flight? 

The  Commandant,  vague  and  imperturbable,  re- 
plies that  in  all  probability  it  will  be  so. 

And  I  (if  possible  more  imperturbable  than  he) 
observe  that  the  War  Correspondents  will  make 
quite  a  nice  flying-party. 

In  a  little  open  carriage  —  the  taxis  have  long 
ago  all  gone  to  the  War  —  in  an  absurd  little  open 
carriage,  exactly  like  a  Cheltenham  "  rat,"  I  depart 
like  a  lady  of  Cheltenham,  for  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste. 


A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       IO3 

The  appearance  and  the  odour  of  this  little  carriage 
give  you  an  odd  sense  of  security  and  peace.  The 
Germans  may  be  advancing  on  Ghent  at  this  mo- 
ment, but  for  all  the  taste  of  war  there  is  in  it, 
you  might  be  that  lady,  going  from  one  hotel  to 
the  other,  down  the  Cheltenham  Promenade. 

The  further  you  go  from  the  Military  Hospital 
and  the  Railway  Station  the  more  it  is  so.  The 
War  does  not  seem  yet  to  have  shaken  the  essential 
peace  of  the  bourgeois  city.  The  Hotel  de  la  Poste 
is  in  the  old  quarter  of  the  town,  where  the  Cathe- 
drals are.  Instead  of  the  long,  black  railway  lines 
and  the  red-brick  fagade  of  the  Station  and  Post 
Office;  instead  of  the  wooded  fields  beyond  and  the 
white  street  that  leads  to  the  battle-places  south 
and  east;  instead  of  the  great  Square  with  its  mus- 
tering troops  and  swarms  of  refugees,  you  have 
the  quiet  Place  d'Armes,  shut  in  by  trees,  and  all 
round  it  are  the  hotels  and  cafes  where  the  offi- 
cers and  the  War  Correspondents  come  and  go. 
Through  all  that  coming  and  going  you  get  the 
sense  of  the  old  foreign  town  that  was  dreaming 
yesterday.  People  are  sitting  outside  the  restau- 
rants all  round  the  Place,  drinking  coffee  and  liq- 
ueurs as  if  nothing  had  happened,  as  if  Antwerp 
were  far-off  in  another  country,  and  as  if  it  were 
still  yesterday.  Mosquitoes  come  up  from  the 


IO4       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

drowsy  canal  water  and  swarm  into  the  hotels  and 
bite  you.  I  found  any  number  of  mosquitoes  cling- 
ing drowsily  to  my  bedroom  walls. 

But  there  are  very  few  women  among  those 
crowds  outside  the  restaurants.  There  are  not 
many  women  except  refugees  in  the  streets,  and 
fewer  still  in  the  shops. 

I  have  blundered  across  a  little  cafe  with  an  af- 
fectionately smiling  and  reassuringly  fat  proprie- 
tress, where  they  give  you  brioches  and  China  tea, 
which,  as  it  were  in  sheer  affection,  they  call  Eng- 
lish. It  is  not  as  happy  a  find  as  you  might  think. 
It  is  not,  in  the  circumstances,  happy  at  all.  In  fact, 
if  you  have  never  known  what  melancholy  is  and 
would  like  to  know  it,  I  can  recommend  two  courses. 
Go  down  the  Grand  Canal  in  Venice  in  the  grey 
spring  of  the  year,  in  a  gondola,  all  by  yourself. 
Or  get  mixed  up  with  a  field  ambulance  which  is 
not  only  doing  noble  work  but  running  thrilling 
risks,  in  neither  of  which  you  have  a  share,  or  the 
ghost  of  a  chance  of  a  share ;  cut  yourself  off  from 
your  comrades,  if  it  is  only  for  a  week,  and  go  into 
a  Belgian  cafe  in  war-time  and  try  to  eat  brioches 
and  drink  English  tea  all  by  yourself.  This  is 
the  more  successful  course.  You  may  see  hope 
beyond  the  gondola  and  the  Grand  Canal.  But 


A    JOURNAL   OF    IMPRESSIONS    IN    BELGIUM        I(>5 

you  will  see  no  hope  beyond  the  brioche  and  the 
English  tea. 

I  walk  about  again  till  it  is  time  to  go  back  to 
the  Hotel.  So  far,  my  emancipation  has  not  been 
agreeable. 

[Evening.     Hotel  de  la  Poste.~\ 

I  DINED  in  the  crowded  restaurant,  avoiding  the 
War  Correspondents,  choosing  a  table  where  I 
hoped  I  might  be  unobserved.  Somewhere  through 
a  glass  screen  I  caught  a  sight  of  Mr.  L.'s  head. 
I  was  careful  to  avoid  the  glass  screen  and  Mr.  L.'s 
head.  He  shall  not  say,  if  I  can  possibly  help  it, 
that  I  am  an  infernal  nuisance.  For  I  know  I 
haven't  any  business  to  be  here,  and  if  Belgium  had 
a  Kitchener  I  shouldn't  be  here.  However  you 
look  at  me,  I  am  here  on  false  pretences.  In  the 
eyes  of  Mr.  L.  I  would  have  no  more  right  to  be 
a  War  Correspondent  (if  I  were  one)  than  I  have 
to  be  on  a  field  ambulance.  It  is  with  the  game 
of  war  as  it  was  with  the  game  of  football  I  used 
to  play  with  my  big  brothers  in  the  garden.  The 
women  may  play  it  if  they're  fit  enough,  up  to  a 
certain  point,  very  much  as  I  played  football  in  the 
garden.  The  big  brothers  let  their  little  sister  kick 


IO6       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

off ;  they  let  her  run  away  with  the  ball ;  they  stood 
back  and  let  her  make  goal  after  goal;  but  when  it 
came  to  the  scrimmage  they  took  hold  of  her  and 
gently  but  firmly  moved  her  to  one  side.  If  she  per- 
sisted she  became  an  infernal  nuisance.  And  if 
those  big  brothers  over  there  only  knew  what  I 
was  after  they  would  make  arrangements  for  my 
immediate  removal  from  the  seat  of  war. 

The  Commandant  has  turned  up  with  Ursula 
Dearmer.  He  is  drawn  to  these  War  Correspon- 
dents who  appear  to  know  more  than  he  does.  On 
the  other  hand,  an  ambulance  that  can  get  into  the 
firing-line  has  an  irresistible  attraction  for  a  War 
Correspondent.  It  may  at  any  moment  constitute 
his  only  means  of  getting  there  himself. 

One  of  our  cars  has  been  sent  out  to  Antwerp 
with  dispatches  and  surgical  appliances. 

The  sight  of  the  Commandant  reminds  me  that 
I  have  got  all  the  funds  of  the  Ambulance  upstairs 
in  my  suit-case  in  that  leather  purse-belt  —  and  if 
the  Ambulance  does  fly  from  Ghent  without  me, 
and  without  that  belt,  it  will  find  itself  in  consider- 
able embarrassment  before  it  has  retreated  very  far. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  I  shall  have  to  take  my 
chance.  I  have  asked  the  Commandant  again 
(either  this  evening  or  earlier)"  so  that  there  may 
be  no  possible  doubt  about  it :  "  If  we  do  have  to 


107 

scoot  from  Ghent  in  a  hurry  I  shall  have  nothing 
but  my  wits  to  trust  to  ?  " 

And  he  says,  "  True  for  you." 

And  he  looks  as  if  he  meant  it.1 

These  remarkable  words  have  a  remarkable  ef- 
fect on  the  new  War  Correspondent.  It  is  as  if 
the  coolness  and  the  courage  and  the  strength  of 
a  hundred  War  Correspondents  and  of  fifty  Red 
Cross  Ambulances  had  been  suddenly  discharged 
into  my  soul.  This  absurd  accession  of  power  and 
valour  2  is  accompanied  by  a  sudden  immense  lucid- 
ity. It  is  as  if  my  soul  had  never  really  belonged 
to  me  until  now,  as  if  it  had  been  either  drugged 
or  drunk  and  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  be 
sober  until  now.  The  sensation  is  distinctly  agree- 
able. And  on  the  top  of  it  all  there  is  a  peace  which 
I  distinctly  recognize  as  the  peace  of  God. 

So,  while  the  Commandant  talks  to  the  War 
Correspondents  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  I  go 
upstairs  and  unlock  my  suit-case  and  take  from  it 
the  leather  purse-belt  with  the  Ambulance  funds 
in  it,  and  I  bring  it  to  the  Commandant  and  lay  it 

1  He  didn't.    People  never  do  mean  these  things. 

2  This  only  means  that,  whether  you  attended  to  it  or  not 
(you  generally  didn't),  as  long  as  you  were  in  Belgium,  your 
sub-consciousness  was  never  entirely  free  from  the  fear  of 
Uhlans  —  of  Uhlans  in  the  flesh.    The  illusion  of  valour  is 
the  natural,  healthy  reaction  of  your  psyche  against  its  fear 
and  your  indifference  to  its  fear. 


108      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

before  him  and  compel  him  to  put  it  on.  As  I 
do  this  I  feel  considerable  compunction,  as  if  I  were 
launching  a  three-year-old  child  in  a  cockle-shell 
on  the  perilous  ocean  of  finance.  I  remind  him 
that  fifteen  pounds  of  the  money  in  the  belt  is  his 
(he  would  be  as  likely  as  not  to  forget  it).  As 
for  the  accounts,  they  are  so  clear  that  a  three- 
year-old  child  could  understand  them.  I  notice 
with  a  diabolical  satisfaction  which  persists  through 
the  all-pervading  peace  by  no  means  as  incongru- 
ously as  you  might  imagine  —  I  notice  particularly 
that  the  Commandant  doesn't  like  this  part  of  it 
a  bit.  There  is  not  anybody  in  the  Corps  who 
wants  to  be  responsible  for  its  funds  or  enjoys 
wearing  that  belt.  But  it  is  obvious  that  if  the 
Ambulance  can  bear  to  be  separated  from  its 
Treasurer- Secretary-Reporter,  in  the  flight  from 
Ghent,  it  cannot  possibly  bear  to  be  separated  from 
its  funds. 

I  am  alone  with  the  Commandant  while  this  hap- 
pens, standing  by  one  of  the  writing-tables  in  the 
lounge.  Ursula  Dearmer  (she  grows  more  mature 
every  day)  and  the  War  Correspondents  and  a  few 
Generals  have  melted  somewhere  into  the  back- 
ground. The  long,  lithe  pigskin  belt  lies  between 
us  on  the  table  —  between  my  friend  and  me  — 
like  a  pale  snake.  It  exerts  some  malign  and  poi- 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       1 09 

sonous  influence.  It  makes  me  say  things,  things 
that  I  should  not  have  thought  it  possible  to  say. 
And  it  is  all  about  the  shells  at  Alost. 

He  is  astonished. 

And  I  do  not  care. 

I  am  sustained,  exalted  by  that  sense  of  right- 
eousness you  feel  when  you  are  insanely  pounding 
somebody  who  thinks  that  in  perfect  sanity  and 
integrity  he  has  pounded  you. 


[Saturday,  $rd.~\ 

MR.  L.  asked  me  to  breakfast.  He  has  told  me 
more  about  the  Corps  in  five  minutes  than  the 
Corps  has  been  able  to  tell  me  in  as  many  days.  He 
has  seen  it  at  Alost  and  Termonde.  You  gather 
that  he  has  seen  other  heroic  enterprises  also  and 
that  he  would  perjure  himself  if  he  swore  that 
they  were  indispensable.  Every  Correspondent  is 
besieged  by  the  leaders  of  heroic  enterprises,  and 
I  imagine  that  Mr.  L.  has  been  "  had  "  before  now 
by  amateurs  of  the  Red  Cross,  and  his  heart  must 
have  sunk  when  he  heard  of  an  English  Field  Ambu- 
lance in  Ghent.  And  he  owns  to  positive  terror 
when  he  saw  it,  with  its  girls  in  breeches,  its  Com- 
mandant in  Norfolk  jacket,  grey  knickerbockers, 


IIO       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

heather-mixture  stockings  and  deer-stalker;  its 
Chaplain  in  khaki,  and  its  Surgeon  a  mark  for  bul- 
lets in  his  Belgian  officer's  cap.  I  suggest  that  this 
absence  of  uniform  only  proves  our  passionate  eager- 
ness to  be  off  and  get  to  work.  But  it  is  right. 
Our  ambulance  is  the  real  thing,  and  Mr.  L.  is  go- 
ing to  be  an  angel  and  help  it  all  he  can.  He  will 
write  about  it  in  the  Illustrated  London  News  and 
the  Westminster.  When  he  hears  that  I  came  out 
here  to  write  about  the  War  and  make  a  little 
money  for  the  Field  Ambulance,  and  that  I  haven't 
seen  anything  of  the  War  and  that  my  invasion  of 
his  hotel  is  simply  a  last  despairing  effort  to  at  least 
hear  something,  he  is  more  angelic  than  ever.  He 
causes  a  whole  cinema  of  war-scenes  to  pass  be- 
fore my  eyes.  When  I  ask  if  there  is  anything  left 
for  me  to  "  do,"  he  evokes  a  long  procession  of  ar- 
ticles —  pure,  virgin  copy  on  which  no  journalist 
has  ever  laid  his  hands  —  and  assures  me  that  it  is 
mine,  that  the  things  that  have  been  done  are  noth- 
ing to  the  things  that  are  left  to  do.  I  tell  him  that 
I  have  no  business  on  his  pitch,  and  that  I  am  horri- 
bly afraid  of  getting  in  the  regular  Correspondents' 
way  and  spoiling  their  game ;  as  I  am  likely  to  play 
it,  there  isn't  any  pitch.  Of  course,  I  suppose,  there 
is  the  "  scoop,"  but  that's  another  matter.  It  is 
the  War  Correspondent's  crown  of  cunning  and  of 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       II  Hi 

valour,  and  nobody  can  take  from  him  that  crown. 
But  in  the  psychology  of  the  thing,  every  Corre- 
spondent is  his  own  pitch.  He  has  told  me  very 
nearly  all  the  things  I  want  to  know,  among  them 
what  the  Belgian  General  said  to  the  Commandant 
when  he  saw  Ursula  Dearmer  at  Alost : 

"  What  the  devil  is  the  lady  doing  there?  " 

I  gather  that  Mr.  L.  shares  the  General's  wonder 
and  my  own  anxiety.  I  am  not  far  wrong  in  re- 
garding Alost  and  Termonde  as  no  fit  place  for 
Ursula  Dearmer  or  any  other  woman. 

Answered  the  Commandant's  letters  for  him. 
Wrote  to  Ezra  Pound.  Wrote  out  the  report  for 
the  last  three  days'  ambulance  work  and  sent  it  to 
the  British  Red  Cross;  also  a  letter  to  Mr.  Rogers 
about  a  light  scouting-car.  The  British  Red  Cross 
has  written  that  it  cannot  spare  any  more  motor 
ambulances,  but  it  may  possibly  send  out  a  small 
car.  (The  Commandant  has  cabled  to  Mr.  Gould, 
of  Gould  Bros.,  Exeter,  accepting  his  offer  of  his 
own  car  and  services.) 

Went  down  to  the  "  Flandria  "  for  news  of  the 
Ambulance.  The  car  that  was  sent  out  yesterday 
evening  got  through  all  right  to  Antwerp  and  re- 
turned safely.  It  has  brought  very  bad  news.  Two 
of  the  outer  forts  are  said  to  have  fallen.  The 
position  is  critical,  and  grave  anxiety  is  felt  for  the 


112      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

safety  of  the  English  in  Antwerp.  Mrs.  St.  Clair 
Stobart  has  asked  us  for  one  of  our  ambulances. 
BiH  even  if  we  could  spare  it  we  cannot  give  it  up 
without  an  order  from  the  military  authority  at 

Ghent.     We  hear  that  Dr.  ,  one  of  Mrs.  Sto- 

bart's  women,  is  to  leave  Antwerp  and  work  at  our 

hospital.     She  is  engaged  to  be  married  to  Dr. , 

and  the  poor  boy  is  somewhat  concerned  for  her 
safety.  I'm  very  glad  I  have  left  the  "  Flandria," 
for  she  can  have  my  room. 

'  I  wish  they  would  make  Miss  come  away 

too. 

Yes:  Miss ,  that  clever  novelist,  who  passes 

for  a  woman  of  the  world  because  she  uses  mun- 
dane appearances  to  hide  herself  from  the  world's 

importunity  —  Miss is  here.     The  War  caught 

her.     Some  people  were  surprised.     I  wasn't.1 

Walked  through  the  town  again  —  old  quarter. 
Walked  and  walked  and  walked,  thinking  about 
Antwerp  all  the  time.  Through  streets  of  grey- 
white  and  lavender-tinted  houses,  with  very  fragile 
balconies.  Saw  the  two  Cathedrals  2  and  the  Town 
Hall  —  refugees  swarming  round  it  —  and  the  Rab 
—  I  can't  remember  its  name :  see  Baedeker  —  with 

1  Nobody  need  have  been  surprised.    She  had  distinguished 
herself  in  other  wars. 

2  One  is  a  church  and  not  a  cathedral. 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       113 

its  turrets  and  its  moat.  Any  amount  of  time  to 
see  cathedrals  in  and  no  Mrs.  Torrence  to  pro- 
test. I  wonder  how  much  of  all  this  will  be  left  by 
next  month,  or  even  by  next  week?  Two  of  the 
Antwerp  forts  have  fallen.  They  say  the  occupa- 
tion of  Ghent  will  be  peaceful;  while  of  Antwerp  I 
suppose  they  would  say,  "  C'est  triste,  n'est-ce  pas?  " 
They  say  the  Germans  will  just  march  into  Ghent 
and  march  out  again,  commandeering  a  few  things 
here  and  there.  But  nobody  knows,  and  by  the 
stolid  faces  of  these  civilians  you  might  imagine  that 
nobody  cares.  Certainly  none  of  them  think  that 
the  fate  of  Antwerp  can  be  the  fate  of  Ghent. 

And  the  faces  of  the  soldiers,  of  the  men  who 
know?  They  are  the  faces  of  important  people, 
cheerful  people,  pleasantly  preoccupied  with  the  busi- 
ness in  hand.  Only  here  and  there  a  grave  face,  a 
fixed,  drawn  face,  a  face  twisted  with  the  irritation 
of  the  strain. 

Why,  the  very  refugees  have  the  look  of  a  rather 
tired  tourist-party,  wandering  about,  seeing  Ghent, 
seeing  the  Cathedral. 

Only  they  aren't  looking  at  the  Cathedral.  They 
are  looking  straight  ahead,  across  the  Place,  up  the 
street;  they  do  not  see  or  hear  the  trams  swinging 
down  on  them,  or  the  tearing,  snorting  motors ;  they 
stroll  abstractedly  into  the  line  of  the  motors  and 


114      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

stand  there ;  they  start  and  scatter,  wild-eyed,  with  a 
sudden  recrudescence  of  the  terror  that  has  driven 
them  here  from  their  villages  in  the  fields. 

It  seems  incredible  that  I  should  be  free  to  walk 
about  like  this.  It  is  as  if  I  had  cut  the  rope  that  tied 
me  to  a  soaring  air-balloon  and  found  myself,  with 
firm  feet,  safe  on  the  solid  earth.  Any  bit  of  earth, 
even  surrounded  by  Germans,  seems  safe  compared 
with  the  asphyxiation  of  that  ascent.  And  when  the 
air-balloon  wasn't  going  up  it  was  as  if  I  had  lain 
stifling  under  a  soft  feather-bed  for  more  than  a 
year.  Now  I've  waked  up  suddenly  and  flung  the 
feather-bed  off  with  a  vigorous  kick. 

[l  Sunday,  4th.] 

(I  HAVE  no  clear  recollection  of  Sunday  morning, 
because  in  the  afternoon  we  went  to  Antwerp;  and 
Antwerp  has  blotted  out  everything  that  went  near 
before  it.) 

The  Ambulance  has  been  ordered  to  take  two  Bel- 

1 1  am  puzzled  about  this  date.  It  stands  in  my  ambulance 
Day-Book  as  Saturday,  3rd,  with  a  note  that  the  British  came 
into  Ghent  on  their  way  to  Antwerp  on  the  evening  of  that 
day.  Now  I  believe  there  were  no  British  in  Antwerp  before 
the  evening  of  Sunday,  the  4th,  yet  "Dr.  Wilson"  and  Mr. 
Davidson,  going  into  Saint  Nicolas  before  us,  saw  the  British 
there,  and  "  Mrs.  Torrence "  and  "  Janet  McNeil "  saw  more 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM       11$ 

gian  professors  (or  else  they  are  doctors)  into  Ant- 
werp. There  isn't  any  question  this  time  of  carry- 
ing wounded.  It  seems  incredible,  but  I  am  going 
too.  I  shall  see  the  siege  of  Antwerp  and  hear  the 
guns  that  were  brought  up  from  Namur. 

Somewhere,  on  the  north-west  horizon,  a  vision, 
heavenly,  but  impalable,  aerial,  indistinct,  of  the 
Greatest  Possible  Danger. 

I  am  glad  I  am  going.  But  the  odd  thing  is  that 
there  is  no  excitement  about  it.  It  seems  an  en- 
tirely fit  and  natural  thing  that  the  vision  should 
materialize,  that  I  should  see  the  shells  battering  the 
forts  of  Antwerp  and  hear  the  big  siege-guns  from 
Namur.  For  all  its  incredibility,  the  adventure  lacks 
every  element  of  surprise.  It  is  simply  what  I  came 
out  for.  For  here  in  Belgium  the  really  incredible 
things  are  the  things  that  existed  and  happened 
before  the  War.  They  existed  and  happened  a  hun- 

British  come  into  Ghent  in  the  evening.  I  was  ill  with  fever 
the  day  after  the  run  into  Antwerp,  and  got  behindhand  with 
my  Day-Book.  So  it  seems  safest  to  assume  that  I  made  a 
wrong  entry  and  that  we  went  into  Antwerp  on  Sunday,  and 
to  record  Saturday's  events  as  spreading  over  the  whole  day. 
Similarly  the  events  that  the  Day-Book  attributes  to  Monday 
must  have  belonged  to  Tuesday.  And  if  Tuesday's  events 
were  really  Wednesday's,  that  clears  up  a  painful  doubt  I  had 
as  to  Wednesday,  which  came  into  my  Day-Book  as  an  empty 
extra  which  I  couldn't  account  for  in  any  way.  There  I  was 
with  a  day  left  over  and  nothing  to  put  into  it.  And  yet 
Wednesday,  the  7th,  was  the  first  day  of  the  real  siege  of 
Antwerp.  On  Thursday,  the  8th,  I  started  clear. 


Il6      A   JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

dred  years  ago  and  the  memory  of  them  is  indis- 
tinct; the  feeling  of  them  is  gone.  You  have  ceased 
to  have  any  personal  interest  in  them;  if  they  hap- 
pened at  all  they  happened  to  somebody  else.  What 
is  happening  now  has  been  happening  always.  All 
your  past  is  soaking  in  the  vivid  dye  of  these  days, 
and  what  you  are  now  you  have  been  always.  I 
have  been  a  War  Correspondent  all  my  life  —  blasee 
with  battles.  The  Commandant  orders  me  into  the 
front  seat  beside  the  chauffeur  Tom,  so  that  I  may 
see  things.  Even  Tom's  face  cannot  shake  me  in 
my  conviction  that  I  am  merely  setting  out  once  more 
on  my  usual,  legitimate,  daily  job. 

It  is  all  so  natural  that  you  do  not  wonder  in 
the  least  at  this  really  very  singular  extension  of 
your  personality.  You  are  not  aware  of  your  per- 
sonality at  all.  If  you  could  be  you  would  see  it 
undergoing  shrinkage.  It  is,  anyhow,  one  of  the 
things  that  ceased  to  matter  a  hundred  years  ago. 
If  you  could  examine  its  contents  at  this  moment 
you  would  find  nothing  there  but  that  shining  vision 
of  danger,  the  siege  of  Antwerp,  indistinct,  impalpa- 
ble, aerial. 

Presently  the  vision  itself  shrinks  and  disappears 
on  the  north-west  horizon.  The  car  has  shot  be- 
yond the  streets  into  the  open  road,  the  great  paved 
highway  to  Antwerp,  and  I  am  absorbed  in  other 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       117 

matters :  in  Car  i  and  in  the  chauffeur  Tom,  who  is 
letting  her  rip  more  and  more  into  her  top  speed 

with  every  mile;  in  M.  C ,  the  Belgian  Red 

Cross  guide,  beside  me  on  my  left,  and  in  the  Bel- 
gian soldier  sitting  on  the  floor  at  his  feet.  The 

soldier  is  confiding  some  fearful  secret  to  M.  C 

about  somebody  called  Achille.  M.  C bends 

very  low  to  catch  the  name,  as  if  he  were  trying  to 
intercept  and  conceal  it,  and  when  he  has  caught  it 
he  assumes  an  air  of  superb  mystery  and  gravity 
and  importance.  With  one  gesture  he  buries  the 
name  of  Achille  in  his  breast  under  his  uniform. 
You  know  that  he  would  die  rather  than  betray  the 
secret  of  Achille.  You  decide  that  Achille  is  the 
heroic  bearer  of  dispatches,  and  that  we  have  secret 
orders  to  pick  him  up  somewhere  and  convey  him  in 
safety  to  Antwerp.  You  do  not  grasp  the  meaning 
of  this  pantomime  until  the  third  sentry  has  ap- 
proached us,  and  M.  C has  stopped  for  the  third 

time  to  whisper  "  Ach-ille !  "  behind  the  cover  of  his 
hand,  and  the  third  sentry  is  instantly  appeased. 

(Concerning  sentries,  you  learn  that  the  Belgian 
kind  is  amiable,  but  that  the  French  sentry  is  a  terri- 
ble fellow,  who  will  think  nothing  of  shooting  you 
if  your  car  doesn't  stop  dead  the  instant  he  levels  his 
rifle.) 

Except  for  sentries  and  straggling  troops  and  the 


Il8       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

long  trains  of  refugees,  the  country  is  as  peaceful 
between  Ghent  and  Saint  Nicolas  as  it  was  last  week 
between  Ostend  and  Ghent.  It  is  the  same  adorable 
Flemish  country,  the  same  flat  fields,  the  same  paved 
causeway  and  the  same  tall,  slender  avenues  of  trees. 
But  if  anything  could  make  the  desolation  of  Bel- 
gium more  desolate  it  is  this  intolerable  beauty  of 
slender  trees  and  infinite  flat  land,  the  beauty  of  a 
country  formed  for  the  very  expression  of  peace. 
In  the  vivid  gold  and  green  of  its  autumn  it  has 
become  a  stage  dressed  with  ironic  splendour  for 
the  spectacle  of  a  people  in  flight.  Half  the  popula- 
tion of  Antwerp  and  the  country  round  it  is  pouring 
into  Ghent.1  First  the  automobiles,  Belgian  offi- 
cers in  uniform  packed  tight  between  women  and 
children  and  their  bundles,  convoying  the  train. 
Then  the  carriages  secured  by  the  bourgeois  (they 
are  very  few)  ;  then  men  and  boys  on  bicycles;  then 
the  carts,  and  with  the  coming  on  of  the  carts  the 
spectacle  grows  incredible,  fantastic.  You  see  a 
thing  advancing  like  a  house  on  wheels.  It  is  a  tall 
hay-wagon  —  the  tallest  wagon  you  have  ever  seen 
in  your  life  —  piled  with  household  furniture  and 
mattresses  on  the  top  of  the  furniture,  and  on  top  of 
the  mattresses,  on  the  roof,  as  it  were,  a  family  of 

1  It  wasn't.    This  was  only  the  first  slender  trickling.    The 
flood  came  three  days  later  with  the  bombardment  of  the  city. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

women  and  children  and  young  girls.  Some  of 
them  seem  conscious  of  the  stupendous  absurdity  of 
this  appearance;  they  smile  at  you  or  laugh  as  the 
structure  goes  towering  and  toppling  by. 

Next,  low  on  the  ground,  enormous  and  grotesque 
bundles,  endowed  with  movement  and  with  legs. 
Only  when  you  come  up  to  them  do  you  see  that 
they  are  borne  on  the  bowed  backs  of  men  and 
women  and  children.  The  children  —  when  there 
are  no  bundles  to  be  borne  these  carry  a  bird  in  a 
cage,  or  a  dog,  a  dog  that  sits  in  their  arms  like  a 
baby  and  is  pressed  tight  to  their  breasts.  Here  and 
there  men  and  women  driving  their  cattle  before 
them,  driving  them  gently,  without  haste,  with  a 
great  dignity  and  patience. 

These,  for  all  the  panic  and  ruin  in  their  bear- 
ing, might  be  pilgrims  or  suppliants,  or  the  servants 
of  some  religious  rite,  bringing  the  votive  offerings 
and  the  sacrificial  beasts.  The  infinite  land  and  the 
avenues  of  slender  trees  persuade  you  that  it  is  so. 

And  wherever  the  ambulance  cars  go  they  meet 
endless  processions  of  refugees;  endless,  for  the 
straight,  flat  Flemish  roads  are  endless,  and  as  far 
as  your  eye  can  see  the  stream  of  people  is  unbroken; 
endless,  because  the  misery  of  Belgium  is  endless; 
the  mind  cannot  grasp  it  or  take  it  in.  You  cannot 
meet  it  with  grief,  hardly  with  conscious  pity;  you 


I2O      A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

have  no  tears  for  it;  it  is  a  sorrow  that  transcends 
everything  you  have  known  of  sorrow.  These  peo- 
ple have  been  left  "  only  their  eyes  to  weep  with." 
But  they  do  not  weep  any  more  than  you  do.  They 
have  no  tears  for  themselves  or  for  each  other.1 
This  is  the  terrible  thing,  this  and  the  manner  of 
their  flight.  It  is  not  flight,  it  is  the  vast,  unhasting 
and  unending  movement  of  a  people  crushed  down 
by  grief  and  weariness,  pushed  on  by  its  own  weight, 
by  the  ceasless  impact  of  its  ruin. 

This  stream  is  the  main  stream  from  Antwerp, 
swollen  by  its  tributaries.  It  doesn't  seem  to  matter 
where  it  comes  from,  its  strength  and  volume  al- 
ways seem  the  same.  After  the  siege  of  Antwerp 
it  will  thicken  and  flow  from  some  other  direction, 
that  is  all.  And  all  the  streams  seem  to  flow  into 
Ghent  and  to  meet  in  the  Palais  des  Fetes.2 

I  forget  whether  it  was  near  Lokeren  or  Saint 
Nicolas  that  we  saw  the  first  sign  of  fighting,  in 
houses  levelled  to  the  ground  to  make  way  for  the 
artillery  fire;  levelled,  and  raked  into  neat  plots 
without  the  semblance  of  a  site. 

After  the  refugees,  the  troops.     Village  streets 

1  Of  all  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  refugees  whom  I 
have  seen  I  have  only  seen  three  weep,  and  they  were  three 
out  of  six  hundred  who  had  just  disembarked  at  the  Prince 
of  Wales's  Pier  at  Dover.    But  in  Belgium  not  one  tear. 

2  This  is  all  wrong.    The  main  stream  went  as  straight  as  it 
could  for  the  sea-coast  —  Holland  or  Ostend. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       121 

crowded  with  military  automobiles  and  trains  of 
baggage  wagons  and  regiments  of  infantry.  Little 
villas  with  desolate,  surprised  and  innocent  faces, 
standing  back  in  their  gardens;  soldiers  sitting  in 
their  porches  and  verandahs,  soldiers'  faces  looking 
out  of  their  windows ;  soldiers  are  quartered  in  every 
room,  and  the  grass  grows  high  in  their  gardens. 
Soldiers  run  down  the  garden  paths  to  look  at  our 
ambulance  as  it  goes  by. 

There  is  excitement  in  the  village  streets. 

At  Saint  Nicolas  we  overtake  Dr.  Wilson  and 
Mr.  Davidson  walking  into  Antwerp.  They  tell  us 
the  news. 

The  British  troops  have  come.  At  last.  They 
have  been  through  before  us  on  their  way  to  Ant- 
werp. Dr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Davidson  have  seen  the 
British  troops.  They  have  talked  to  them. 

Mr.  Davidson  cannot  conceal  his  glee  at  getting 
in  before  the  War  Correspondents.  Pure  luck  has 
given  into  his  hands  the  great  journalistic  scoop  of 
the  War  in  Belgium.  And  he  is  not  a  journalist. 
He  is  a  sculptor  out  for  the  busts  of  warriors,  and 
for  actuality  in  those  tragic  and  splendid  figures 
that  are  grouped  round  memorial  columns,  for  the 
living  attitude  and  gesture. 

We  take  up  Mr.  Davidson  and  Dr.  Wilson,  and 
leave  one  of  our  professors  (if  he  is  a  professor) 


at  Saint  Nicolas,  for  the  poor  man  has  come  without 
his  passport.  He  will  have  to  hang  about  at  Saint 
Nicolas,  doing  nothing,  until  such  time  as  it  pleases 
Heaven  to  send  us  back  from  Antwerp.  He  resigns 
himself,  and  we  abandon  him,  a  piteous  figure 
wrapped  in  a  brown  shawl. 

After  Saint  Nicolas  more  troops,  a  few  batteries 
of  artillery,  some  infantry,  long,  long  regiments  of 
Belgian  cavalry,  coming  to  the  defence  of  the  coun- 
try outside  Antwerp.  Cavalry  halting  at  a  fork  of 
the  road  by  a  little  fir-wood.  A  road  that  is  rather 
like  the  road  just  outside  Wareham  as  you  go  to- 
wards Poole.  More  troops.  And  after  the  troops 
an  interminable  procession  of  labourers  trudging  on 
foot.  At  a  distance  you  take  them  for  refugees, 
until  you  see  that  they  are  carrying  poles  and  spades. 
Presently  the  road  cuts  through  the  circle  of  stakes 
and  barbed  wire  entanglements  set  for  the  Ger- 
man cavalry.  And  somewhere  on  our  left  (whether 
before  or  after  Saint  Nicolas  I  cannot  remember), 
across  a  field,  the  rail  embankment  ran  parallel  with 
our  field,  and  we  saw  the  long  ambulance  train,  fly- 
ing the  Red  Cross  and  loaded  with  wounded,  on 
its  way  from  Antwerp  to  Ghent.  At  this  point  the 
line  is  exposed  conspicuously,  and  we  must  have  been 
well  within  range  of  the  German  fire,  for  the  next 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       123 

ambulance- train  —  but  we  didn't  know  about  the 
next  ambulance  train  till  afterwards. 

After  the  circle  of  the  stakes  and  wire  entangle- 
ments you  begin  to  think  of  the  bombardment.  You 
strain  your  ears  for  the  sound  of  the  siege-guns  from 
Namur.  Somewhere  ahead  of  us  on  the  horizon 
there  is  Antwerp.  Towers  and  tall  chimneys  in  a 
very  grey  distance.  Every  minute  you  look  for  the 
flight  of  the  shells  across  the  grey  and  the  fall  of  a 
tower  or  a  chimney.  But  the  grey  is  utterly  peace- 
ful and  the  towers  and  the  tall  chimneys  remain. 
And  at  last  you  turn  in  a  righteous  indignation  and 
say :  "  Where  is  the  bombardment  ?  " 

The  bombardment  is  at  the  outer  forts. 

And  where  are  the  forts,  then?  (You  see  no 
forts.'); 

The  outer  forts?  Oh,  the  outer  forts  are  thirty 
kilometres  away. 

No.     Not  there.     To  your  right. 

And  you,  who  thought  you  would  have  died  rather 
than  see  the  siege  of  Antwerp,  are  dumb  with  dis- 
gust. Your  heart  swells  with  a  holy  and  incorrupti- 
ble resentment  of  the  sheer  levity  of  the  Comman- 
dant. 

A  pretty  thing  —  to  bring  a  War  Correspondent 
out  to  see  a  bombardment  when  there  isn't  any  bom- 


124       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

bardment,  or  when  all  there  ever  was  is  a  hundred 
—  well  then,  thirty  kilometres  away.1 

It  was  twilight  as  we  came  into  Antwerp.  We 
approached  it  by  the  west,  by  the  way  of  the  sea,  by 
the  great  bridge  of  boats  over  the  Scheldt.  The 
sea  and  the  dykes  are  the  defence  of  Antwerp  on 
this  side.  Whole  regiments  of  troops  are  crossing 
the  bridge  of  boats.  Our  car  crawls  by  inches  at 
a  time.  It  is  jammed  tight  among  some  baggage 
wagons.  It  disentangles  itself  with  difficulty  from 
the  baggage  wagons,  and  is  wedged  tighter  still 
among  the  troops.  But  the  troops  are  moving, 
though  by  inches  at  a  time.  We  get  our  front 
wheels  on  to  the  bridge.  Packed  in  among  the 
troops,  but  moving  steadily  as  they  move,  we  cross 
the  Scheldt.  On  our  right  the  sharp  bows  and  on 
our  left  the  blunt  sterns  of  the  boats.  Boat  after 
boat  pressed  close,  gunwale  to  gunwale,  our  road- 
way goes  across  their  breasts.  Their  breasts  are 
taut  as  the  breasts  of  gymnasts  under  the  tramping 
of  the  regiments.  They  vibrate  like  the  breasts  of 
living  things  as  they  bear  us  up. 

No  heaving  of  any  beautiful  and  beloved  ship, 
no  crossing  of  any  sea,  no  sight  of  any  city  that 
has  the  sea  at  her  feet,  not  New  York  City  nor 
Venice,  no  coming  into  any  foreign  land,  ever  thrilled 

1  The  outer  forts  were  twelve  miles  away. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

me  as  that  coming  into  Antwerp  with  the  Belgian 
army  over  that  bridge  of  boats. 

At  twilight,  from  the  river,  with  its  lamps  lit  and 
all  its  waters  shining,  Antwerp  looked  beautiful  as 
Venice  and  as  safe  and  still.  For  the  dykes  are 
her  defences  on  this  side.  But  for  the  trudging 
regiments  you  would  not  have  guessed  that  on  the 
land  side  the  outer  ramparts  were  being  shelled  in- 
cessantly. 

It  was  a  struggle  up  the  slope  from  the  river  bank 
to  the  quay,  a  struggle  in  which  we  engaged  with 
commissariat  and  ammunition  wagons  and  troops 
and  refugees  in  carts,  all  trying  to  get  away  from 
the  city  over  the  bridge  of  boats.  The  ascent  was 
so  steep  and  slippery  that  you  felt  as  though  at  any 
moment  the  car  might  hurl  itself  down  backwards 
on  the  top  of  the  processions  struggling  behind 
it. 

At  last  we  landed.  I  have  no  vivid  recollection  l 
of  our  passage  through  the  town.  Except  that  I 
know  we  actually  were  in  Antwerp  I  could  not  say 
whether  I  really  saw  certain  winding  streets  and  old 
houses  with  steep  gables  or  whether  I  dreamed  them. 
There  was  one  great  street  of  white  houses  and 
gilded  signs  that  stood  shimmering  somewhere  in 

1  At  the  time  of  writing  —  February  igth,  1915.  My  Day- 
Book  gives  no  record  of  anything  but  the  hospitals  we  visited. 


126       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

the  twilight;  but  I  cannot  tell  you  what  street  it 
was.  And  there  were  some  modern  boulevards,  and 
the  whole  place  was  very  silent.  It  had  the  silence 
and  half  darkness  of  dreams,  and  the  beauty  and 
magic  and  sinister  sadness  of  dreams.  And  in  that 
silence  and  sadness  our  car,  with  its  backings  and 
turnings  and  its  snorts,  and  our  own  voices  as  we 
asked  our  way  (for  we  were  more  or  less  lost  in 
Antwerp)  seemed  to  be  making  an  appalling  and  in- 
appropriate and  impious  noise. 

Antwerp  seems  to  me  to  have  been  all  hospitals, 
though  I  only  saw  two,  or  perhaps  three.  One  was 
in  an  ordinary  house  in  a  street,  and  I  think  this 
must  have  been  the  British  Field  Hospital ;  for  Mrs. 
Winterb'ottom  was  there.  And  of  all  the  women 
I  met  thus  casually  "  at  the  front "  she  was,  by  a 
long  way,  the  most  attractive.  We  went  into  one 
or  two  of  the  wards;  in  others,  where  the  cases  were 
very  serious,  we  were  only  allowed  to  stand  for  a 
second  in  the  doorway;  there  were  others  again 
which  we  could  not  see  at  all. 

I  think,  unless  I  am  rolling  two  hospitals  into 
one,  that  we  saw  a  second  —  the  English  Hospital. 
It  was  for  the  English  Hospital  that  we  heard  the 
Commandant  inquire  perpetually  as  we  made  our 
way  through  the  strange  streets  and  the  boulevards 
beyond  them,  following  at  his  own  furious  pace,  los- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

ing  him  in  byways  and  finding  him  by  some  miracle 
again.  Talk  of  dreams!  Our  progress  through 
Antwerp  was  like  one  of  those  nightmares  which 
have  no  form  or  substance  but  are  made  up  of 
ghastly  twilight  and  hopeless  quest  and  ever-acceler- 
ating speed.  It  was  not  till  it  was  all  over  that  we 
knew  the  reason  for  his  excessive  haste. 

When  we  got  to  Mrs.  St.  Clair  Stobart's  Hos- 
pital—  in  a  garden,  planted  somewhere  away  be- 
yond the  boulevards  in  an  open  place  —  we  had 
hardly  any  time  to  look  at  it.  All  the  same,  I  shall 
never  forget  that  Hospital  as  long  as  I  live.  It 
had  been  a  concert-hall  *  and  was  built  principally 
of  glass  and  iron;  at  any  rate,  if  it  was  not  really 
the  greenhouse  that  it  seemed  to  be  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  glass  about  it,  and  it  had  been  shelled  by 
aeroplane  the  night  before.  No  great  damage  had 
been  done,  but  the  sound  and  the  shock  ha'd  terrified 
the  wounded  in  their  beds.  This  hospital,  as  every- 
body knows,  is  run  entirely  by  women,  with  women 
doctors,  women  surgeons,  women  orderlies.  Mrs. 
St.  Clair  Stobart  and  some  of  her  gallant  staff  came 
out  to  meet  us  on  a  big  verandah  in  front  of  this 
fantastic  building,  she  and  her  orderlies  in  the  uni- 
form of  the  British  Red  Cross,  her  surgeons  in  long 

1  There  must  be  something  wrong  here,  for  the  place  was,  I 
believe,  a  convent. 


128       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

white  linen  coats  over  their  skirts.  Dr. whom 

we  are  to  take  back  with  us  to  Ghent,  was  there. 

We  asked  for  Miss  ,  and  she  came  to  us 

finally  in  a  small  room  adjoining  what  must  have 
been  the  restaurant  of  the  concert-hall. 

I  was  shocked  at  her  appearance.  She  was  quieter 
than  ever  and  her  face  was  grey  and  worn  with 
watching.  She  looked  as  if  she  could  not  have  held 
out  another  night. 

She  told  us  about  last  night's  bombardment.  The 
effect  of  it  on  this  absurd  greenhouse  must  have 
been  terrific.  Every  day  they  are  expecting  the  bom- 
bardment of  the  town. 

No,  none  of  them  are  leaving  except  two.  Every 
woman  will  stick  to  her  post *  till  the  order  comes 
to  evacuate  the  hospital,  and  then  not  one  will  quit 
till  the  last  wounded  man  is  carried  to  the  transport. 

It  seems  that  Miss is  a  hospital  orderly,  and 

that  her  duty  is  to  stand  at  the  gate  of  the  garden 
with  a  lantern  as  the  ambulances  come  in  and  to  light 
them  to  the  door  of  the  hospital,  and  then  to  see 
that  each  man  has  the  number  of  his  cot  pinned  to  the 
breast  of  his  sleeping-jacket. 

Mrs.  Stobart,  very  properly,  will  have  none  but 
trained  women  in  her  hospital.  But  even  an  un- 
trained woman  is  equal  to  holding  a  lantern  and 

1  Every  woman  did. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       1 29 

pinning  on  tickets,  so  I  implored  Miss  to  let 

me  take  her  place  while  she  went  back  to  rest  in  my 
room  at  Ghent,  if  it  was  only  for  one  night.  I  used 
every  argument  I  could  think  of,  and  for  one  sec- 
ond I  thought  the  best  argument  had  prevailed.  But 
it  was  only  for  a  second.  Probably  not  even  for  a 

second.  Miss may  drop  to  pieces  at  her  post, 

but  it  is  there  that  she  will  drop. 

Outside  on  the  verandah  the  Commandant  was 
fairly  ramping  to  be  off.  No  —  I  can't  see  the 
Hospital.  There  isn't  any  time  to  see  the  Hospital. 

But  Miss could  not  bear  me  not  to  see  it,  and 

together  we  made  a  surreptitious  bolt  for  it,  and  I 
'did  see  the  Hospital. 

It  was  not  like  any  hospital  you  had  ever  seen  be- 
fore. Except  that  the  wounded  were  all  comforta- 
bly bedded,  it  was  more  like  the  sleeping-hall  of 
the  Palais  des  Fetes.  The  floor  of  the  great  con- 
cert-hall was  covered  with  mattresses  and  beds, 
where  the  wounded  lay  about  in  every  attitude  of 
suffering.  No  doubt  everything  was  in  the  most 
perfect  order,  and  the  nurses  and  doctors  knew  how 
to  thread  their  way  through  it  all,  but  to  the  hurried 
spectator  in  the  doorway  the  effect  was  one  of  the 
most  macabre  confusion.  Only  one  object  stood 
out  —  the  large  naked  back  of  a  Belgian  soldier, 
who  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  bed  waiting  to  be  washed. 


130       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

He  must  have  been  really  the  most  cheerful  and 
(comparatively)  uninjured  figure  in  the  whole 
crowd,  but  he  seemed  the  most  pitiful,  because  of 
the  sheer  human  insistence  of  his  pathetic  back. 
;  Over  this  back  and  over  all  that  prostrate  agony 
the  enormous  floriated  bronze  rings  that  carried  the 
lights  of  the  concert-hall  hung  from  the  ceiling  in 
frightful,  festive  decoration. 

Miss whispered :     "  One  of  them  is  dying. 

We  can't  save  him." 

She  seemed  to  regard  this  one  as  a  positive  slur 
on  their  record.  I  thought :  "  Only  one  —  among 
all  that  crowd !  " 

Mrs.  Stobart  came  after  us  in  some  alarm  as  we 
ran  down  the  garden. 

"  What  are  you  doing  with  Miss ?     You're 

not  going  to  carry  her  off?" 

"  No,"  I  said,  "  we're  not.     She  won't  come." 

But  we  have  got  off  with  Dr. . 

Mrs.  Stobart  has  refused  the  Commandant's  offer 
of  one  of  our  best  surgeons  in  exchange.  He  is  a 
man.  And  this  hospital  is  a  Feminist  Show. 

We  dined  in  a  great  hurry  in  a  big  restaurant  in 
one  of  the  main  streets.  The  restaurant  was  nearly 
empty  and  funereal  black  cloths  were  hung  over  the 
windows  to  obscure  the  lights. 

Mr.  Davidson  (this  cheerful  presence  was  with 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

us  in  our  dream-like  career  through  Antwerp)  — 
Mr.  Davidson  and  I  amused  ourselves  by  planning 
how  we  will  behave  when  we  are  taken  prisoner 
by  the  Germans.  He  is  safe,  because  he  is  an  Amer- 
ican citizen.  The  unfortunate  thing  about  me  is  my 
passport,  otherwise,  by  means  of  a  well-simulated 
nasal  twang  I  might  get  through  as  an  American 
novelist.  I've  been  mistaken  for  one  often  enough 
in  my  own  country.  But,  as  I  don't  mean  to  be 
taken  prisoner,  and  perhaps  murdered  or  have  my 
hands  chopped  off,  without  a  struggle,  my  plan  is  to 
deliver  a  speech  in  German,  as  follows:  " Ich  bin 
eine  beruhmte  Schriftstellerin"  (on  these  occasions 
you  stick  at  nothing),  "  beriihmt  in  England,  aber 
viel  beruhmter  in  den  Vereinigten  Staaten,  und  mem 
Schicksal  will  den  Presidenten  Wilson  nicht  gleich- 
giiltig  sein."  I  added  by  way  of  rhetorical  flourish 
as  the  language  went  to  my  head :  "  Er  will  mem 
Tod  zu  vertheidigen  gut  wissen;"  but  I  was  aware 
that  this  was  overdoing  it. 

Mr.  Davidson  thought  it  would  be  better  on  the 
whole  if  he  were  to  pass  me  off  as  his  wife.  Per- 
haps it  would,  but  it  seems  a  pity  that  so  much  good 
German  should  be  wasted. 

We  got  up  from  that  dinner  with  even  more  haste 
than  we  had  sat  down.  All  lights  in  the  town  were 
put  out  at  eight-thirty,  and  we  didn't  want  to  go 


132       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

crawling  and  blundering  about  in  the  dark  with  our 
ambulance  car.  There  was  a  general  feeling  that 
the  faster  we  ran  back  to  Ghent  the  better. 

We  left  Mr.  Davidson  and  Dr.  Wilson  in 
Antwerp.  They  were  staying  over-night  for  the 
fun  of  the  thing. 

Another  awful  struggle  on  the  downward  slope 
from  the  quay  to  the  bridge  of  boats.  A  bad  jam 
at  the  turn.  A  sudden  loosening  and  letting  go  of 
the  traffic,  and  we  were  over. 

We  ran  back  to  Ghent  so  fast  that  at  Saint  Nico- 
las (where  we  stopped  to  pick  up  our  poor  little  Bel- 
gian professor)  we  took  the  wrong  turn  at  the  fork 
of  the  road  and  dashed  with  considerable  elan  over 
the  Dutch  frontier.  We  only  realized  it  when  a 
sentry  in  an  unfamiliar  uniform  raised  his  rifle  and 
prepared  to  fire,  not  with  the  cheerful,  perfunctory 
vigilance  of  our  Belgians,  but  in  a  determined,  busi- 
ness-like manner,  and  the  word  "  Achille,"  imparted 
in  a  burst  of  confidence,  produced  no  sympathy 
whatever.  On  the  contrary,  this  absurd  sentry 
(who  had  come  out  of  a  straw  sentry-box  that  was 
like  an  enormous  beehive)  went  on  pointing  his  rifle 
at  us  with  most  unnecessary  persistence.  I  was  so 
interested  in  seeing  what  he  would  do  next  that  I 
missed  the  very  pleasing  behaviour  of  the  little  Bel- 
gian professor,  who  sat  next  to  me,  wrapped  in  his 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       133 

brown  shawl.  He  still  imagined  himself  to  be  on 
the  road  to  Ghent,  and  when  he  saw  that  sentry 
continuing  to  prepare  to  fire  in  spite  of  our  pass- 
word, he  concluded  that  we  and  the  road  to  Ghent 
were  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  So  he  instantly 
ducked  behind  me  for  cover  and  collapsed  on  the 
floor  of  the  ambulance  in  his  shawl. 

Then  somebody  said  "  We're  in  Holland ! "  and 
there  were  shouts  of  laughter  from  everybody  in  the 
car  except  the  little  Belgian.  Then  shouts  of  laugh- 
ter from  the  Dutch  sentries  and  Customs  officers, 
who  enjoyed  this  excellent  joke  as  much  as  we  did. 

We  were  now  out  of  our  course  by  I  don't  know 
how  many  miles  and  short  of  petrol.  But  one  of 
the  Customs  officers  gave  us  all  we  wanted. 

It's  heart-breaking  the  way  these  dear  Belgians 
take  the  British.  They  have  waited  so  long  for  our 
army,  believing  that  it  would  come,  till  they  could 
believe  no  more.  In  Ghent,  in  Antwerp,  you 
wouldn't  know  that  Belgium  had  any  allies;  you 
never  see  the  British  flag,  or  the  French  either,  hang- 
ing from  the  windows.  The  black,  yellow  and  red 
standard  flies  everywhere  alone.  Now  that  we  have 
come,  their  belief  in  us  is  almost  unbearable.  They 
really  think  we  are  going  to  save  Antwerp.  Some- 
where between  Antwerp  and  Saint  Nicolas  the  pop- 
ulation of  a  whole  village  turned  out  to  meet  us  with 


134      A  JOUR'NAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

cries  of  "Les  "Anglais!  Les  Anglaises!"  and 
laughed  for  joy.  Terrible  for  us,  who  had  heard 
Belgians  say  reproachfully :  "  We  thought  that  the 
British  would  come  to  our  help.  But  "they  never 
came ! "  They  said  it  more  in  sorrow  than  in  an- 
ger ;  but  you  couldn't  persuade  them  that  the  British 
fought  for  Belgium  at  Mons. 

We  got  into  Ghent  about  midnight. 

Dr.  is  to  stay  at  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste  to- 
night. 

[Monday,  $th.~\ 

THE  mosquitoes  from  the  canal  have  come  up  and 
bitten  me.  I  was  ill  all  night  with  something  that 
felt  like  malarial  fever,  if  it  isn't  influenza. 
Couldn't  get  up  —  too  drowsy. 

Mr.  L.  came  in  to  see  me  first  thing  in  the  morn- 
ing. He  also  came  to  hear  at  first  hand  the  story 
of  our  run  into  Antwerp.  He  was  extremely  kind. 
He  sat  and  looked  at  me  sorrowfully,  as  if  he  had 
been  the  family  doctor,  and  gave  me  some  of  his  very 
own  China  tea  (in  Belgium  in  war-time  this  is  one 
of  the  most  devoted  things  that  man  can  do  for  his 
brother).  He  was  so  gentle  and  so  sympathetic 
that  my  heart  went  out  to  him,  and  I  forgot  all  about 
poor  Mr.  Davidson,  and  gave  up  to  him  the  whole 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       135 

splendid  "  scoop  "  of  the  British  troops  at  Saint  Nic- 
olas. 

I  couldn't  tell  him  much  about  the  run  into  Ant- 
werp. No  doubt  it  was  a  thrilling  performance  — 
through  all  the  languor  of  malaria  it  thrills  me  now 
when  I  think  of  it  —  but  it  wasn't  much  to  offer  a 
War  Correspondent,  since  it  took  us  nowhere  near 
the  bombardment.  It  had  nothing  for  the  psycholo- 
gist or  for  the  amateur  of  strange  sensations,  and 
nothing  for  the  pure  and  ardent  Spirit  of  Adventure, 
and  nothing  for  that  insatiable  and  implacable  Self, 
that  drives  you  to  the  abhorred  experiment,  deter- 
mined to  know  how  you  will  come  out  of  it.  For 
there  was  no  more  danger  in  the  excursion  than  in 
a  run  down  to  Brighton  and  back;  and  I  know 
no  more  of  fear  or  courage  than  I  did  before  I 
started. 

But  now  that  I  realize  what  the  insatiable  and  im- 
placable Self  is  after,  how  it  worked  in  me  against 
all  decency  and  all  pity,  how  it  actually  made  me  feel 
as  if  I  wanted  to  see  Antwerp  under  siege,  and  how 
the  spirit  of  adventure  backed  it  up,  I  can  forgive 
the  Commandant.  I  still  think  that  he  sinned  when 
he  took  Ursula  Dearmer  to  Termonde  and  to  Alost. 
But  the  temptation  that  assailed  him  at  Alost  and 
Termonde  was  not  to  be  measured  by  anybody  who 
was  not  there. 


136       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

It  must  have  been  irresistible. 

Besides,  it  is  not  certain  that  he  did  take  Ursula 
Dearmer  into  danger;  it  is  every  bit  as  likely  that 
she  took  him;  more  likely  still  that  they  were  both 
victims  of  force  majeure,  fascinated  by  the  lure  of 
the  greatest  possible  danger.  And,  oh,  how  I  did 
pitch  into  him ! 

I  am  ashamed  of  the  things  I  said  in  that  access 
of  insulting  and  indignant  virtue. 

Can  it  be  that  I  was  jealous  of  Ursula  Dearmer, 
that  innocent  girl,  because  she  saw  a  shell  burst  and 
I  didn't?  I  know  this  is  what  was  the  matter  with 
Mrs.  Torrence  the  other  day.  She  even  seemed  to 
imply  that  there  was  some  feminine  perfidy  in  Ur- 
sula Dearmer's  power  of  drawing  shells  to  her. 
(She,  poor  dear,  can't  attract  even  a  bullet  within  a 
mile  of  her.)1 

Lying  there,  in  that  mosquito-haunted  room,  I 
dissolved  into  a  blessed  state,  a  beautiful,  drowsy 
tenderness  to  everybody,  a  drowsy,  beautiful  for- 
giveness of  the  Commandant.  I  forgot  that  he  in- 
timated, sternly,  that  no  ambulance  would  be  at  my 
disposal  in  the  flight  from  Ghent  —  I  remember  only 
that  he  took  me  into  Antwerp  yesterday,  and  that 
he  couldn't  help  it  if  the  outer  forts  were  thirty  kilo- 

1  This  was  made  up  to  her  afterwards !  Her  cup  fairly  ran 
over. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       137 

metres  away,  and  I  forgive  him,  beautifully  and 
drowsily. 

But  when  he  came  running  up  in  great  haste  to  see 
me,  and  rushed  down  into  the  kitchens  of  the  Hotel 
to  order  soup  for  me,  and  into  the  chemist's  shop  in 
the  Place  d'Armes  to  get  my  medicine,  and  ran  back 
again  to  give  it  me,  before,  I  knew  where  I  was 
(such  is  the  debilitating  influence  of  malaria),  in- 
stead of  forgiving  him,  I  found  myself,  in  abject 
contrition,  actually  asking  him  to  forgive  me. 

It  was  all  wrong,  of  course;  but  the  mosquitoes 
had  bitten  me  rather  badly. 

Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  McNeil  have  got  to  work 
at  last.  All  afternoon  and  all  night  yesterday  they 
were  busy  between  the  Station  and  the  hospitals  re- 
moving the  wounded  from  the  Antwerp  trains. 

And  Car  I  had  no  sooner  got  into  the  yard  of  the 
"  Flandria  "  to  rest  after  its  trip  to  Antwerp  and 
back  than  it  was  ordered  out  again  with  the  Com- 
mandant and  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs.  Torrence  to 
meet  the  last  ambulance  train.  The  chauffeur  Tom 
was  nowhere  to  be  seen  when  the  order  came.  He 
was,  however,  found  after  much  search,  in  the  Park, 
in  the  company  of  the  Cricklewood  bus  and  a  whole 
regiment  of  Tommies. 

One  of  these  ambulance  trains  had  been  shelled  by 


138       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

the  Germans  (they  couldn't  have  been  very  far  from 
us  in  our  run  from  Antwerp  —  it  was  their  nearness, 
in  fact,  that  accounted  for  our  prodigious  haste!), 
and  many  of  the  men  came  in  worse  wounded  than 
they  went  out. 

We  are  all  tremendously  excited  over  the  arrival 
of  the  Tommies  and  the  Cricklewood  bus.  We  can 
think  of  nothing  else  but  the  relief  of  Antwerp. 

Uusula  Dearmer  came  to  see  me.  She  under- 
stands that  I  have  forgiven  her  that  shell  —  and 
why.  She  wore  the  clothes  —  the  rather  heart- 
rending schoolgirl  clothes  —  she  wore  when  she 
came  to  see  the  Committee.  But  oh,  how  the  young- 
est but  one  has  grown  up  since  then ! 

Mrs.  Torrence  came  to  see  me  also,  and  Janet 
McNeil.  Mrs.  Torrence,  though  that  shell  still  ran- 
kles, is  greatly  appeased  by  the  labours  of  last  night. 
So  is  Janet. 

They  told  rather  a  nice  story. 

A  train  full  of  British  troops  from  Ostend  came 
into  the  station  yesterday  at  the  same  time  as  the 
ambulance  train  from  Antwerp.  The  two  were 
drawn  up  one  on  each  side  of  the  same  platform. 
When  the  wounded  Belgians  saw  the  British  they 
struggled  to  their  feet.  At  every  window  of  the  am- 
bulance train  bandaged  heads  were  thrust  out  and 
bandaged  hands  waved.  And  the  Belgians  shouted. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       139 

But  the  British  stood  dumb,  stolid  and  impassive 
before  their  enthusiasm. 

Mrs.  Torrence  called  out,  "  Give  them  a  cheer, 
boys.  They're  the  bravest  little  soldiers  in  the 
world." 

Then  the  Tommies  let  themselves  go,  and  the  Sta- 
tion roof  nearly  flew  off  with  the  explosion. 

The  Corps  worked  till  four  in  the  morning  clear- 
ing out  those  ambulance  trains.  The  wards  are 
nearly  full.  And  this  is  only  the  beginning. 

[Tuesday,  6th.~\ 

MALARIA  gone. 

The  Commandant  called  to  give  his  report  of  the 
ambulance  work.  He,  Mrs.  Torrence,  Janet  Mc- 
Neil, Ursula  Dearmer  and  the  men  were  working  all 
yesterday  afternoon  and  evening  till  long  past  dark 
at  Termonde.  It's  the  finest  thing  they've  done  yet. 
The  men  and  the  women  crawled  on  their  hands  and 
knees  in  the  trenches  [  ?  under  the  river  bank]  under 
fire.  Ursula  Dearmer  (that  girl's  luck  is  simply 
staggering!)  — Ursula  Dearmer,  wandering  adven- 
turously apart,  after  dark,  on  the  battlefield,  found  a 
young  Belgian  officer,  badly  wounded,  lying  out 
under  a  tree.  She  couldn't  carry  him,  but  she  went 
for  two  stretchers  and  three  men ;  and  they  put  the 


I4O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

young  officer  on  one  stretcher,  and  she  trotted  off 
with  his  sword,  his  cap  and  the  rest  of  his  accoutre- 
ments on  the  other.  He  owes  his  life  to  this  mani- 
festation of  her  luck. 

Dr.  Wilson  has  come  back  from  Antwerp. 

It  looks  as  if  Dr.  Haynes  and  Dr.  Bird  would  go. 
At  any  rate,  I  think  they  will  give  up  working  on 
the  Field  Ambulance.  There  aren't  enough  cars  for 
four  surgeons  and  four  field-women,  and  they  have 
seen  hardly  any  service.  This  is  rather  hard  luck 
on  them,  as  they  gave  up  their  practice  to  come  out 
with  us.  Naturally,  they  don't  want  to  waste  any 
more  time. 

I  managed  to  get  some  work  done  to-day.  Wrote 
a  paragraph  about  the  Ambulance  for  Mr.  L., 
who  will  publish  it  in  the  Westminster  under  his 
name,  to  raise  funds  for  us.  He  is  more  than 
ever  certain  that  it  (the  Ambulance)  is  the  real 
thing. 

Also  wrote  an  article  ("  L'Hopital  Militaire,  Nro. 
2  ")  for  the  Daily  Chronicle;  the  first  bit  of  journal- 
ism I've  had  time  or  material  for. 

Shopped.     Very  triste  affair. 

Went  to  mass  in  the  Cathedral.  Sat  far  back 
among  the  refugees. 

If  you  want  to  know  what  Religion  really  is,  go 
into  a  Catholic  church  in  a  Catholic  country  under 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

invasion.  You  only  feel  the  tenderness,  the  naivete 
of  Catholicism  in  peace-time.  In  war-time  you  real- 
ize its  power. 


[Evening.] 

SAW  Mr.  P.,  who  has  been  at  Termonde.  He 
spoke  with  great  praise  of  the  gallantry  of  our 
Corps. 

It's  odd  —  either  I'm  getting  used  to  it,  or  it's  the 
effect  of  that  run  into  Antwerp  —  but  I'm  no  longer 
torn  by  fear  and  anxiety  for  their  safety. 

[?]  Dined  with  Mr.  L.  in  a  restaurant  in  the 
town.  It  proved  to  be  more  expensive  than  either 
of  us  cared  for.  Our  fried  sole  left  us  hungry  and 
yet  conscience-stricken,  as  if  after  an  orgy,  suffering 
in  a  dreadful  communion  of  guilt. 

{Wednesday,  Jin.] 

7  A.M.  Got  up  early  and  went  to  Mass  in  the  Ca- 
thedral. 

Prepared  report  for  British  Red  Cross.  Wrote 
"  Journal  of  Impressions  "  from  September  25th  to 
September  26th,  n  A.M.  It's  slow  work.  Haven't 
got  out  of  Ostend  yet! 

Fighting  at  Zele. 


142       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS    IN    BELGIUM 

[Afternoon.] 

GOT  very  near  the  fighting  this  time. 

Mr.  L.  (Heaven  bless  him!)  took  me  out  with 
him  in  the  War  Correspondents'  car  to  see  what  the 
Ambulance  was  doing  at  Zele,  and,  incidentally,  to 
look  at  the  bombardment  of  some  evacuated  villages 
near  it  (I  have  no  desire  to  see  the  bombardment  of 
any  village  that  has  not  been  evacuated  first).  Mr. 
M.  came  too,  and  they  brought  a  Belgian  lady  with 
them,  a  charming  and  beautiful  lady,  whose  name  I 
forget. 

When  Mr.  L.  told  me  to  get  up  and  come  with 
him  to  Zele,  I  did  get  up  with  an  energy  and  enthu- 
siasm that  amazed  me ;  I  got  up  like  one  who  has  been 
summoned  at  last,  after  long  waiting,  to  a  sure  and 
certain  enterprise.  I  can  trust  Mr.  L.  or  any  War 
Correspondent  who  means  business,  as  I  cannot 
(after  Antwerp)  trust  the  Commandant.  So  far, 
if  the  Commandant  happens  upon  a  bombardment 
it  has  been  either  in  the  way  of  duty,  or  by  sheer 
luck,  or  both,  as  at  Alost  and  Termonde,  when  duty 
took  him  to  these  places,  and  any  bombardment  or 
firing  was,  as  it  were,  thrown  in.  He  did  not  go  out 
deliberately  to  seek  it,  for  its  own  sake,  and  find  it 
infallibly,  which  is  the  War  Correspondent's  way. 
So  that  if  Mr.  L.  says  there  is  going  to  be  a  born- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       143 

bardment,  we  shall  probably  get  somewhere  nearer 
to  it  than  thirty  kilometres. 

We  took  the  main  road  to  Zele.  I  don't  know 
whether  it  was  really  a  continuation  of  the  south- 
east road  that  runs  under  the  Hospital  windows; 
anyhow,  we  left  it  very  soon,  striking  southwards 
to  the  right  to  find  what  Mr.  L.  believed  to  be  a 
short  cut.  Thus  we  never  got  to  Zele  at  all.  We 
came  out  on  a  good  straight  road  that  would  no 
doubt  have  led  us  there  in  time,  but  that  we  allowed 
ourselves  to  be  lured  by  the  smoke  of  the  great  fac- 
tory at  Schoonard  burning  away  to  the  south. 

For  a  long  time  I  could  not  believe  that  it  was 
smoke  we  saw  and  not  an  enormous  cloud  blown  by 
the  wind  across  miles  of  sky.  We  seemed  to  run  for 
miles  with  that  terrible  banner  streaming  on  our 
right  to  the  south,  apparently  in  the  same  place,  as 
far  off  as  ever.  East  of  it,  on  the  sky-line,  was  a 
whole  fleet  of  little  clouds  that  hung  low  over  the 
earth;  that  rose  from  it;  rose  and  were  never  lifted, 
but  as  they  were  shredded  away,  scattered  and  van- 
ished, were  perpetually  renewed.  This  movement 
of  their  death  and  re-birth  had  a  horrible  sinister 
pulse  in  it. 

Each  cloud  of  this  fleet  of  clouds  was  the  smoke 
from  a  burning  village. 

At  last,  after  an  endless  flanking  pursuit  of  the 


144       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

great  cloud  that  continued  steadily  on  our  right,  pil- 
ing itself  on  itself  and  mounting  incessantly,  we 
struck  into  a  side  lane  that  seemed  to  lead  straight 
to  the  factory  on  fire.  But  in  this  direct  advance  the 
cloud  eluded  us  at  every  turn  of  the  lane.  Now  it 
was  rising  straight  in  front  of  us  in  the  south,  now 
it  was  streaming  away  somewhere  to  the  west  of  our 
track.  When  we  went  west  it  went  east.  When  we 
went  east  it  went  west.  And  wherever  we  went 
we  met  refugees  from  the  burning  villages.  They 
were  trudging  along  slowly,  very  tired,  very  miser- 
able, but  with  no  panic  and  no  violent  grief.  We 
passed  through  villages  and  hamlets,  untouched 
still,  but  waiting  quietly,  and  a  little  breathlessly, 
on  the  edge  of  their  doom. 

At  the  end  of  one  lane,  where  it  turned  straight 
to  the  east  round  the  square  of  a  field  we  came  upon 
a  great  lake  ringed  with  trees  and  set  in  a  green 
place  of  the  most  serene  and  vivid  beauty.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  the  same  hour  should  bring  us  to  this 
magic  stillness  and  peace  and  within  sight  of  the 
smoke  of  war  and  within  sound  of  the  guns. 

At  the  next  turn  we  heard  them. 

We  still  thought  that  we  could  get  to  Schoonard, 
to  the  burning  factory,  and  work  back  to  Zele  by  a 
slight  round.  But  at  this  turn  we  had  lost  sight  of 
Schoonard  and  the  great  cloud  altogether,  and  found 


A  JOUR'NAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM       145 

ourselves  in  a  little  hamlet  Heaven  knows  where. 
Only,  straight  ahead  of  us,  as  we  looked  westwards, 
we  heard  the  guns.  The  sound  came  from  some- 
where over  there  and  from  two  quarters;  German 
guns  booming  away  on  the  south,  Belgian  [  PFrench] 
guns  answering  from  the  north. 

Judging  by  these  sounds  and  those  we  heard  after- 
wards, we  must  have  been  now  on  the  outer  edge 
of  a  line  of  fire  stretching  west  and  east  and  follow- 
ing the  course  of  the  Scheldt.  The  Germans  were 
entrenched  behind  the  river. 

In  the  little  hamlet  we  asked  our  way  of  a  peasant. 
As  far  as  we  could  make  out  from  his  mixed  French 
and  Flemish,  he  told  us  to  turn  back  and  take  the 
road  we  had  left  where  it  goes  south  to  the  village 
of  Baerlaere.  This  we  did.  We  gathered  that  we 
could  get  a  road  through  Baerlaere  to  Schoonard. 
Failing  Schoonard,  our  way  to  Zele  lay  through 
Baerlaere  in  the  opposite  direction. 

We  set  off  along  a  very  bad  road  to  Baerlaere. 

Coming  into  Baerlaere,  we  saw  a  house  with  a  re- 
markable roof,  a  steep-pitched  roof  of  black  and 
white  tiles  arranged  in  a  sort  of  chequer-board  pat- 
tern. I  asked  Mr.  L.  if  he  had  ever  seen  a  roof  like 
that  in  his  life  and  he  replied  promptly,  "Yes;  in 
China."  And  that  roof  —  if  it  was  coming  into 
Baerlaere  that  we  saw  it  —  is  all  that  I  can  remember 


146      A   JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

of  Baerlaere.  There  was,  I  suppose,  the  usual 
church  with  its  steeple  where  the  streets  forked  and 
the  usual  town  hall  near  it,  with  a  flight  of  steps  be- 
fore the  door  and  a  three-cornered  classic  pediment ; 
and  the  usual  double  line  of  flat-fronted,  grey-shut- 
tered houses ;  I  do  seem  to  remember  these  things  as 
if  they  had  really  been  there,  but  you  couldn't  see 
the  bottom  half  of  the  houses  for  the  troops  that 
were  crowded  in  front  of  them,  or  the  top  half  for 
the  shells  you  tried  to  see  and  didn't.  They  were 
sweeping  high  up  over  the  roofs,  making  for  the  en- 
trenchments and  the  batteries  beyond  the  village. 

We  had  come  bang  into  the  middle  of  an  artillery 
duel.  It  was  going  on  at  a  range  of  about  a  mile 
and  a  half,  but  all  over  our  heads,  so  that  though  we 
heard  it  with  great  intensity,  we  saw  nothing. 

There  were  intervals  of  a  few  seconds  between  the 
firing.  The  Belgian  [?  French]  batteries  were 
pounding  away  on  the  left  quite  near  (the  boom- 
ing seemed  to  come  from  behind  the  houses  at 
our  backs),  and  the  German  on  the  right,  farther 
away. 

Now,  you  may  have  hated  and  dreaded  the  sound 
of  guns  all  your  life,  as  you  hate  and  dread  any  im- 
mense and  violent  noise,  but  there  is  something  about 
the  sound  of  the  first  near  gun  of  your  first  battle 
that,  so  far  from  being  hateful  or  dreadful,  or  in 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       147 

any  way  abhorrent  to  you,  will  make  you  smile  in 
spite  of  yourself  with  a  kind  of  quiet  exultation 
mixed  very  oddly  with  reminiscence 1  so  that, 
though  your  first  impression  (by  no  means  disagree- 
able) is  of  being  "  in  for  it,"  your  next,  after  the 
second  and  the  third  gun,  is  that  of  having  been  in 
for  it  many  times  before.  The  effect  on  your  nerves 
is  now  like  that  of  being  in  a  very  small  sailing-boat 
in  a  very  big-running  sea.  You  climb  wave  after 
high  wave,  and  are  not  swallowed  up  as  you  ex- 
pected. You  wait,  between  guns,  for  the  boom  and 
the  shock  of  the  next,  with  a  passionate  anticipation, 
as  you  wait  for  the  next  wave.  And  the  sound  of 
the  gun  when  it  comes  is  like  the  exhilarating  smack 
of  the  wave  that  you  and  your  boat  mean  to  resist 
and  do  resist  when  it  gets  you. 

You  do  not  think,  as  you  used  to  think  when  you 
sat  safe  in  your  little  box-like  house  in  St.  John's 
Wood,  how  terrible  it  is  that  shells  should  be  hurtling 
through  the  air  and  killing  men  by  whole  regiments. 
You  do  not  think  at  all.  Nobody  anywhere  near 
you  is  thinking  that  sort  of  thing,  or  thinking  very 
much  at  all. 

At  the  sound  of  the  first  near  gun  I  found  myself 

1 1  have  heard  a  distinguished  alienist  say  that  this  rem- 
iniscent sensation  is  a  symptom  of  approaching  insanity.  As 
it  is  not  at  all  uncommon,  there  must  be  a  great  many  lunatics 
going  about 


148       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

looking  across  the  road  at  a  French  soldier.  We 
were  smiling  at  each  other. 

When  we  tried  to  get  to  Schoonard  from  the  west 
end  of  the  town  we  were  stopped  and  turned  back 
by  the  General  in  command.  Not  in  the  least 
abashed  by  this  contretemps,  Mr.  L.,  after  some  par- 
ley with  various  officers,  decided  not  to  go  back  in 
ignominious  safety  by  the  way  we  came,  but  to  push 
on  from  the  east  end  of  the  village  into  the  open 
country  through  the  line  of  fire  that  stretched  be- 
tween us  and  the  road  to  Zele.  On  our  way,  while 
we  were  about  it,  he  said,  we  might  as  well  stop  and 
have  a  look  at  the  Belgian  batteries  at  work  —  as  if 
he  had  said  we  might  as  well  stop  at  Olympia  and 
have  a  look  at  the  Motor  Show  on  our  way  to  Rich- 
mond. 

At  this  point  the  unhappy  chauffeur,  who  had  not 
found  himself  by  any  means  at  home  in  Baerlaere, 
remarked  that  he  had  a  wife  and  family  dependent 
on  him. 

Mr.  L.  replied  with  dignity  that  he  had  a  wife  and 
family  too,  and  that  we  all  had  somebody  or  some- 
thing; and  that  War  Correspondents  cannot  afford 
to  think  of  their  wives  and  families  at  these  mo- 
ments. 

Mr.  M.'s  face  backed  up  Mr.  L.  with  an  expres- 
sion of  extreme  determination. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      (149 

The  little  Belgian  lady  smiled  placidly  and  imper- 
turbably,  with  an  air  of  being  ready  to  go  anywhere 
where  these  intrepid  Englishmen  should  see  fit  to 
take  her. 

I  felt  a  little  sorry  for  the  chauffeur.  He  had 
been  out  with  the  War  Correspondents  several  times 
already,  and  I  hadn't. 

We  left  him  and  his  car  behind  us  in  the  village, 
squeezed  very  tight  against  a  stable  wall  that  stood 
between  them  and  the  German  fire.  We  four  went 
on  a  little  way  beyond  the  village  and  turned  into  a 
bridle  path  across  the  open  fields.  At  the  bottom 
of  a  field  to  our  left  was  a  small  slump  of  willows; 
we  had  heard  the  Belgian  guns  firing  from  that  direc- 
tion a  few  minutes  before.  We  concluded  that  the 
battery  was  concealed  behind  the  willows.  We 
strolled  on  like  one  half  of  a  picnic  party  that  has 
been  divided  and  is  looking  innocently  for  the  other 
half  in  a  likely  place.1  But  as  we  came  nearer  to 
the  willows  we  lost  our  clue.  The  battery  had  evi- 
dently made  up  its  mind  not  to  fire  as  long  as  we 
were  in  sight.  Like  the  cloud  of  smoke  from  the 
Schoonard  factory,  it  eluded  us  successfully.  And 
indeed  it  is  hardly  the  way  of  batteries  to  choose 

1  Except  that  nobody  had  any  time  to  attend  to  us,  I  can't 
think  why  we  weren't  all  four  of  us  arrested  for  spies.  We 
hadn't  any  business  to  be  looking  for  the  position  of  the 
Belgian  batteries. 


I5O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

positions  where  interested  War  Correspondents  can 
come  out  and  find  them.1 

So  we  went  back  to  the  village,  where  we  found 
the  infantry  being  drawn  up  in  order  and  doing 
something  to  its  rifles.  For  one  thrilling  moment 
I  imagined  that  the  Germans  were  about  to  leap  out 
of  their  trenches  and  rush  the  village,  and  that  the 
Belgians  [?  French]  were  preparing  for  a  bayonet 
charge. 

"  In  that  case,"  I  thought,  "  we  shall  be  very  use- 
ful in  picking  up  the  wounded  and  carrying  them 
away  in  that  car." 

I  never  thought  of  the  ugly  rush  and  the  horrors 
after  it.  It  is  extraordinary  how  your  mind  can  put 
away  from  it  any  thought  that  would  make  life  in- 
supportable. 

But  no,  they  were  not  fixing  bayonets.  They 
were  not  doing  anything  to  their  rifles;  they  were 
only  stacking  them. 

It  was  then  that  you  thought  of  the  ugly  rush  and 
were  glad  that,  after  all,  it  wouldn't  happen. 

You  were  glad  —  and  yet  in  spite  of  that  same 
gladness,  there  was  a  little  sense  of  disappointment, 
unaccountable,  unpardonable,  and  not  quite  sane. 

One  of  the  men  showed  us  a  burst  shrapnel  shell. 
We  examined  it  with  great  interest  as  the  kind  of 

1More  than  likely  our  appearance  there  stopped  the  firing. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

thing  that  would  be  most  likely  to  hit  us  on  our  way 
from  Baerlaere  to  Zele. 

We  had  been  barely  half  an  hour  hanging  about 
Baerlaere,  but  it  seemed  as  if  we  had  wasted  a  whole 
afternoon  there.  At  last  we  started.  We  were  told 
to  drive  fast,  as  the  fire  might  open  on  us  at  any  min- 
ute. We  drove  very  fast.  Our  road  lay  through 
open  country  flat  to  the  river,  with  no  sort  of  cover 
anywhere  from  the  German  fire,  if  it  chose  to  come. 
About  half  a  mile  ahead  of  us  was  a  small  hamlet 
that  had  been  shelled.  Mr.  L.  told  us  to  duck  when 
we  heard  the  guns.  I  remember  thinking  that  I  par- 
ticularly didn't  want  to  be  wounded  in  my  right  arm, 
and  that  as  I  sat  with  my  right  arm  resting  on  the 
ledge  of  the  car  it  was  somewhat  exposed  to  the  Ger- 
man batteries,  so  I  wriggled  low  down  in  my  seat  and 
tucked  my  arm  well  under  cover  for  quite  five  min- 
utes. But  you  couldn't  see  anything  that  way,  so  I 
popped  up  again  and  presently  forgot  all  about  my 
valuable  arm  in  the  sheer  excitement  of  the  rush 
through  the  danger  zone.  Our  car  was  low  on  the 
ground ;  still,  it  was  high  enough  and  big  enough  to 
serve  as  a  mark  for  the  German  guns  and  it  fairly 
gave  them  the  range  of  the  road. 

But  though  the  guns  had  been  pounding  away  be- 
fore we  started,  they  ceased  firing  as  we  went 
through. 


152 

That,  however,  was  sheer  luck.  And  presently  it 
was  brought  home  to  me  that  we  were  not  the  only 
persons  involved  in  the  risk  of  this  joyous  adventure. 
Just  outside  the  bombarded  hamlet  ahead  of  us  we 
were  stopped  by  some  Belgian  [?  French]  soldiers 
hidden  in  the  cover  of  a  ditch  by  the  roadside,  which 
if  it  was  not  a  trench  might  very  easily  have  been  one. 
They  were  talking  in  whispers  for  fear  of  being  over- 
heard by  the  Germans,  who  must  have  been  at  least 
a  mile  off,  across  the  fields  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river.  A  mile  seemed  a  pretty  safe  distance;  but 
Mr.  L.  said  it  wouldn't  help  us  much,  considering 
that  the  range  of  their  guns  was  twenty- four  miles. 
The  soldiers  told  us  we  couldn't  possibly  get  through 
to  Zele.  That  was  true.  The  road  was  blocked  — 
by  the  ruins  of  the  hamlet  —  not  twenty  yards  from 
where  we  were  pulled  up.  We  got  out  of  the  car; 
and  while  Mr.  L.  and  the  Belgian  lady  conversed 
with  the  soldiers,  Mr.  M.  and  I  walked  on  to  investi- 
gate the  road. 

At  the  abrupt  end  of  a  short  row  of  houses  it 
stopped  where  it  should  have  turned  suddenly,  and 
became  a  rubbish-heap  lying  in  a  waste  place. 

Just  at  first  I  thought  we  must  have  gone  out  of 
our  course  somehow  and  missed  the  road  to  Zele. 
It  was  difficult  to  realize  that  this  rubish-heap  lying 
in  a  waste  place  ever  had  been  a  road.  But  for  the 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       l"53 

shell  of  a  house  that  stood  next  to  it,  the  last  of  the 
row,  and  the  piles  of  lath  and  plaster,  and  the  shat- 
tered glass  on  the  sidewalk  and  the  blown  dust  every- 
where, it  might  have  passed  for  the  ordinary  no- 
thoroughfare  of  an  abandoned  brick-field. 

Mr.  M.  made  me  keep  close  under  the  wall  of  a 
barn  or  something  on  the  other  side  of  the  street, 
the  only  thing  that  stood  between  us  and  the  German 
batteries.  Beyond  the  barn  were  the  green  fields  bare 
to  the  guns  that  had  shelled  this  end  of  the  village. 
At  first  we  hugged  our  shelter  tight,  only  looking 
out  now  and  then  round  the  corner  of  the  barn  into 
the  open  country. 

A  flat  field,  a  low  line  of  willows  at  the  bottom, 
and  somewhere  behind  the  willows  the  German  bat- 
teries. Grey  puffs  were  still  curling  about  the  stems 
and  clinging  to  the  tops  of  the  willows.  They  might 
have  been  mist  from  the  river  or  smoke  from  the 
guns  we  had  heard.  I  hadn't  time  to  watch  them, 
for  suddenly  Mr.  M.  darted  from  his  cover  and  made 
an  alarming  sally  into  the  open  field. 

He  said  he  wanted  to  find  some  pieces  of  nice  hot 
shell  for  me. 

So  I  had  to  run  out  after  Mr.  M.  and  tell  him  I 
didn't  want  any  pieces  of  hot  shell,  and  pull  him 
back  into  safety. 

All  for  nothing.     Not  a  gun  fired. 


154      A  JOUR'NAL  OF   IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

We  strolled  across  what  was  left  of  the  narrow 
street  and  looked  through  the  window- frames  of  a 
shattered  house.  It  had  been  a  little  inn.  The  roof 
and  walls  of  the  parlour  had  been  wrecked,  so  had 
most  of  the  furniture.  But  on  a  table  against  the 
inner  wall  a  row  of  clean  glasses  still  stood  in  their 
order  as  the  landlord  had  left  them;  and  not  one  of 
them  was  broken. 

I  suppose  it  must  have  been  about  time  for  the 
guns  to  begin  firing  again,  for  Mr.  U.  called  to  us  to 
come  back  and  to  look  sharp  too.  So  we  ran  for  it. 
And  as  we  leaped  into  the  car  Mr.  L.  reproved  Mr. 
M.  gravely  and  virtuously  for  "taking  a  lady  into 
danger." 

The  car  rushed  back  into  Baerlaere  if  anything 
faster  than  it  had  rushed  out,  Mr.  L.  sitting  bolt  up- 
right with  an  air  of  great  majesty  and  integrity.  I 
remember  thinking  that  it  would  never,  never  do  to 
duck  if  the  shells  came,  for  if  we  did  Mr.  L/s  head 
would  stand  out  like  a  noble  monument  and  he  would 
be  hit  as  infallibly  as  any  cathedral  in  Belgium. 

It  seems  that  the  soldiers  were  not  particularly 
pleased  at  our  blundering  up  against  their  trench  in 
our  noisy  car,  which,  they  said,  might  draw  down 
the  German  fire  at  any  minute  on  the  Belgian  lines. 

We  got  into  Ghent  after  dark  by  the  way  we 
came. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       155 

[Evening.] 

CALLED  at  the  "  Flandria."  Ursula  Dearmer  and 
two  Belgian  nurses  have  been  sent  to  the  convent  at 
Zele  to  work  there  to-night. 

Mr. is  here.  But  you  wouldn't  know  him. 

I  have  just  been  introduced  to  him  without  knowing 
him.  Before  the  War  he  was  a  Quaker,1  a  teeto- 
taller, and  a  pacifist  at  any  price.  And  I  suppose 
he  wore  clothes  that  conformed  more  or  less  to  his 
principles.  Now  he  is  wearing  the  uniform  of  a 
British  naval  officer.  He  is  drinking  long  whiskies- 
and-sodas  in  the  restaurant,  in  the  society  of  Major 
R.  And  the  Major's  khaki  doesn't  give  a  point  to 
the  Quaker's  uniform.  As  for  the  Quaker,  they  say 
he  could  give  points  to  any  able  seaman  when  it 
comes  to  swear  words  (but  this  may  be  sheer  affec- 
tionate exaggeration).  His  face  and  his  high, 
hatchet  nose,  whatever  colour  they  used  to  be,  are 
now  the  colour  of  copper  —  not  an  ordinary,  Dutch 
kettle  and  coal-scuttle,  pacifist,  arts-and-crafts  cop- 
per, but  a  fine  old,  truculent,  damn-disarmament, 
Krupp-&-Co.,  bloody,  ammunition  copper,  and  bat- 

*I  have  since  been  told  that  he  was  not.  And  I  think  in 
any  case  I  am  wrong  about  his  "  matchboard "  car.  It  must 
have  been  somebody  else's.  In  fact,  I'm  very  much  afraid  that 
"  he "  was  somebody  else  —  that  I  hadn't  the  luck  really  to 
meet  him. 


156       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

tered  by  the  wars  of  all  the  world.  He  is  the  com- 
mander and  the  owner  of  an  armoured  car,  one  of 
the  unit  of  five  volunteer  armoured  cars.  I  do  not 
know  whether  he  was  happy  or  unhappy  when  there 
wasn't  a  war.  No  man,  and  certainly  no  Quaker, 
could  possibly  be  happier  than  this  Quaker  is  now. 
He  and  the  Major  have  been  out  potting  Germans  all 
the  afternoon.  (They  have  accounted  for  nine.) 
A  schoolboy  who  has  hit  the  mark  nine  times  running 
with  his  first  toy  rifle  is  not  merrier  than,  if  as  merry 
as,  these  more  than  mature  men  with  their  armoured 
car.  They  do  not  say  much,  but  you  gather  that  it  is 
more  fun  being  a  volunteer  than  a  regular;  it  is  to 
enjoy  delight  with  liberty,  the  maximum  of  risk  with 
the  minimum  of  responsibility. 

And  their  armoured  car  —  if  it  is  the  one  I  saw 
standing  to-day  in  the  Place  d'Armes  —  it  is,  as  far 
as  you  can  make  out  through  its  disguises,  an  or- 
dinary open  touring  car,  with  a  wooden  hoarding 
(mere  matchboard)  stuck  all  round  it,  the  whole 
painted  grey  to  simulate  armoured  painting. 
Through  four  holes,  fore  and  aft  and  on  either  side 
of  her,  their  machine-guns  rake  the  horizon.  The 

Major  and  Mr.  sit  inside,  hidden  behind  the 

matchboard  plating.  They  scour  the  country. 
When  they  see  any  Germans  they  fire  and  bring  them 
down.  It  is  quite  simple.  When  you  inquire  how 


they  can  regard  that  old  wooden  rabbit-hutch  as  an 
armoured  cover,  they  reply  that  their  car  isn't  for 
defence,  it's  for  attack.  The  Germans  have  only  to 
see  their  guns  and  they're  off.  And  really  it  looks 
like  it,  since  the  two  are  actually  here  before  your 
eyes,  drinking  whiskies-and-sodas,  and  the  rest  of 
the  armoured-car  corps  are  alive  somewhere  in 
Ghent. 

Dear  Major  R.  and  Mr. (whom  I  never  met 

before),  unless  they  read  this  Journal,  which  isn't 
likely,  they  will  never  know  how  my  heart  warmed 
towards  them,  nor  how  happy  I  count  myself  in  be- 
ing allowed  to  see  them.  They  showed  me  how 
good  it  is  to  be  alive ;  how  excellent,  above  all  things, 
to  be  a  man  and  to  be  young  for  ever,  and  to  go  out 
into  the  most  gigantic  war  in  history,  sitting  in  an 
armoured  car  which  is  as  a  rabbit-hutch  for  safety, 
and  to  have  been  a  pacifist,  that  is  to  say  a  sinner, 

like  Mr.  ,  so  that  on  the  top  of  it  you  feel  the 

whole  glamour  and  glory  of  conversion.  Others 
may  have  known  the  agony  and  the  fear  and  sordid 
filth  and  horror  and  the  waste,  but  they  know  noth- 
ing but  the  clean  and  fiery  passion  and  the  con- 
tagious ecstasy  of  war. 

If  you  were  to  tell  Mr. about  the  mystic  fas- 
cination of  the  south-east  road,  the  road  that  leads 
eventually  to  Waterloo,  he  would  most  certainly 


158       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

understand  you,  but  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  he 
would  let  you  venture  very  far  down  it.  Whereas 
the  Commandant,  sooner  or  later,  will. 


[Thursday,  8th.] 

HAD  breakfast  with  Mr.  L. 

Went  down  to  the  "  Flandria."  They  say  Zele 
has  been  taken.  There  has  been  terrific  anxiety 
here  for  Ursula  Dearmer  and  the  two  Belgian 
nurses  (Madame  F.'s  daughter  and  niece),  who 
were  left  there  all  night  in  the  convent,  which  may 
very  well  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans  by  now. 
An  Ambulance  car  went  off  very  early  this  morn- 
ing to  their  rescue  and  has  brought  them  back 
safe. 

We  are  told  that  the  Germans  are  really  advan- 
cing on  Ghent.  We  have  orders  to  prepare  to  leave 
it  at  a  minute's  notice.  This  time  it  looks  as  if 
there  might  be  something  in  it. 

I  attend  to  the  Commandant's  correspondence. 
Wired  Mr.  Hastings.  Wired  Miss  F.  definitely  ac- 
cepting the  Field  Ambulance  Corps  and  nurses  she 
has  raised  in  Glasgow.  Her  idea  is  that  her  Am- 
bulance should  be  an  independent  unit  attached  to 
our  corps  but  bearing  her  name.  (Seems  rather  a 
pity  to  bring  the  poor  lady  out  just  now  when  things 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       159 

are  beginning  to  be  risky  and  our  habitations  un- 
certain. ) 

The  British  troops  are  pouring  into  Ghent.  There 
is  a  whole  crowd  of  them  in  the  Place  in  front  of 
the  Station.  And  some  British  wounded  from  Ant- 
werp are  in  our  Hospital. 

Heavy  fighting  at  Lokeren,  between  Ghent  and 
Saint  Nicolas.  Car  I  has  been  sent  there  with  the 
Commandant,  Ursula  Dearmer,  Janet  McNeil  and 
the  Chaplain  (Mr.  Foster  has  been  hurt  in  lifting  a 
stretcher;  he  is  out  of  it,  poor  man).  Mrs.  Tor- 
rence,  Dr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Riley  have  been  sent  to 
Nazareth.  Mrs.  Lambert  has  gone  to  Lokeren  with 
her  husband  in  his  car. 

I  was  sent  for  this  morning  by  somebody  who 
desired  to  see  the  English  Field  Ambulance.  Drawn 
up  before  the  Hospital  I  found  all  that  was  left  of 
a  Hendon  bus,  in  the  charge  of  two  British  Red 
Cross  volunteers  in  khaki  and  a  British  tar.  The 
three  were  smiling  in  full  enjoyment  of  the  high 
comedy  of  disaster.  They  said  they  were  looking 
for  a  job,  and  they  wanted  to  know  if  our  Ambu- 
lance would  take  them  on.  They  were  keen.  They 
had  every  qualification  under  the  sun. 

"  Only,"  they  said,  "  there's  one  thing  we  bar. 
And  that's  the  firing-line.  We've  been  under  shell- 
fire  for  fifteen  hours  —  and  look  at  our  bus ! " 


tt6o      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

The  bus  was  a  thing  of  heroism  and  gorgeous 
ruin.  The  nose  of  its  engine  looked  as  if  it  had 
nuzzled  its  way  through  a  thousand  debacles;  its 
dark-blue  sides  were  coated  with  dust  and  mud  to 
the  colour  of  an  armoured  car.  The  letters 
M.  E.  T.  were  barely  discernible  through  the  grey. 
Its  windows  were  shattered  to  mere  jags  and  spikes 
and  splinters  of  glass  that  adhered  marvellously  to 
their  frames. 

I  don't  know  how  I  managed  to  convey  to  the 
three  volunteers  that  such  a  bus  would  be  about  as 
much  use  to  our  Field  Ambulance  as  an  old  green- 
house that  had  come  through  an  earthquake.  It 
was  one  of  the  saddest  things  I  ever  had  to  do. 

Unperturbed,  and  still  credulous  of  adventure, 
they  climbed  on  to  their  bus,'  turned  her  nose  round, 
and  went,  smiling,  away. 

Who  they  were,  and  what  corps  they  belonged  to, 
and  how  they  acquired  that  Metropolitan  bus  I  shall 
never  know,  and  do  not  want  to  know.  I  would  far 
rather  think  of  them  as  the  heroes  of  some  fantastic 
enterprise,  careering  in  gladness  and  in  mystery 
from  one  besieged  city  to  another. 

Saw  Madame  F.,  who  looks  worried.  She  sug- 
gested that  I  should  come  back  to  the  Hospital.  She 
says  it  must  be  inconvenient  for  the  Commandant 
not  to  .have  his  secretary  always  at  hand.  At  the 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       l6l 

same  time,  we  are  told  that  the  Hospital  is  filling  up 
so  fast  that  our  rooms  will  be  wanted.  And  any- 
how, Dr. has  got  mine. 

I  have  found  an  absurd  little  hotel,  the  Hotel 
Cecil  in  the  Place,  opposite  the  Hospital,  where  I 
can  have  a  room.  Then  I  can  be  on  duty  all  day. 

Went  down  to  the  "  Poste."  Gave  up  my  room, 
packed  and  took  leave  of  the  nice  fat  proprietaire 
and  his  wife. 

Driving  through  the  town,  I  meet  French  troops 
pouring  through  the  streets.  There  was  very  little 
cheering. 

Settled  into  the  Hotel  Cecil;  if  it  could  be  called 
settling  when  my  things  have  to  stay  packed,  in 
case  the  Germans  come  before  the  evening. 

The  Hotel  Cecil  is  a  thin  slice  of  a  house  with 
three  rooms  on  each  little  floor,  and  a  staircase  like  a 
ladder.  There  is  something  very  sinister  about  this 
smallness  and  narrowness  and  steepness.  You  say 
to  yourself:  Supposing  the  Germans  really  do 
come  into  Ghent;  there  will  be  some  Uhlans  among 
them;  and  the  Uhlans  will  certainly  come  into  the 
Hotel  Cecil,  and  they  will  get  very  drunk  in  the 
restaurant  below ;  and  you  might  as  well  be  in  a  trap 
as  in  this  den  at  the  top  of  the  slice  up  all  these 
abominable  little  steep  stairs.  And  you  are  very 
glad  that  your  room  has  a  balcony. 


1 62       A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

But  though  your  room  has  a  balcony  it  hasn't 
got  a  table,  or  any  space  where  a  table  could  stand. 
There  is  hardly  anything  in  it  but  a  big  double  bed 
and  a  tall  hat-stand.  I  have  never  seen  a  room 
more  inappropriate  to  a  secretary  and  reporter. 

The  proprietor  and  his  wife  are  very  amiable. 
He  is  a  Red  Cross  man;  and  they  have  taken  two 
refugee  women  into  their  house.  They  have  prom- 
ised faithfully  that  by  noon  there  shall  be  a  table. 

Noon  has  come ;  and  there  is  no  table. 

The  cars  have  come  back  from  Lokeren  and  Naz- 
areth, full  of  wounded. 

Mrs.  Lambert  and  her  husband  have  come  back 
from  Lokeren.  They  drove  right  into  the  German 
lines  to  fetch  two  wounded.  They  were  promptly 
arrested  and  as  promptly  released  when  their  pass- 
ports had  shown  them  to  be  good  American  citizens. 
They  brought  back  their  two  wounded.  Alto- 
gether, ten  or  fifteen  wounded  have  been  brought 
back  from  Lokeren  this  morning. 

[Afternoon.'] 

THE  Commandant  has  taken  me  out  with  the  Am- 
bulance for  the  first  time.  We  were  to  go  to 
Lokeren. 

On  the  wax  we  came  up  with  the  Lamberts  in 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM       163 

their  scouting-car.  They  asked  me  to  get  out  of 
the  Ambulance  car  and  come  with  them.  On  the 
whole,  after  this  morning,  it  looked  as  if  the  scout- 
ing-car promised  better  incident.  So  I  threw  in 
my  lot  with  the  Lamberts. 

It  was  a  little  disappointing,  for  no  sooner  had 
the  Ambulance  car  got  clean  away  than  the  scouting- 
car  broke  down.  Also  Mr.  Lambert  stated  that  it 
was  not  his  intention  to  take  Mrs.  Lambert  into  the 
German  lines  again  to-day  if  he  could  possibly 
help  it. 

We  waited  for  an  exasperating  twenty  minutes 
while  the  car  got  righted.  From  our  street,  in  a 
blue  transparent  sky,  so  high  up  that  it  seemed  part 
of  the  transparency,  we  saw  a  Taube  hanging  over 
Ghent,  People  came  out  of  their  houses  and 
watched  it  with  interest  and  a  kind  of  amiable  toler- 
ation. 

At  last  we  got  off;  and  the  scouting-car  made 
such  good  running  that  we  came  up  with  our  Am- 
bulance in  a  small  town  half-way  between  Ghent 
and  Lokeren.  We  stopped  here  to  confer  with  the 
Belgian  Army  Medical  officers.  They  told  us  it  was 
impossible  to  go  on  to  Lokeren.  Lokeren  was  now 
in  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  The  wounded  had 
been  brought  into  a  small  village  about  two  miles 
away. 


164       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

When  we  got  into  the  village  we  were  told  to  go 
back  at  once,  for  the  Germans  were  coming  in.  The 
Commandant  answered  that  we  had  come  to  fetch 
the  wounded  and  were  certainly  not  going  back  with- 
out them.  It  seemed  that  there  were  only  four 
wounded,  and  they  had  been  taken  into  houses  in 
the  village. 

We  were  given  five  minutes  to  get  them  out  and 
go. 

I  suppose  we  stayed  in  that  village  quite  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour. 

It  was  one  straight  street  of  small  houses,  and 
beyond  the  last  house  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
flat  road,  a  quiet,  grey  road  between  tall,  slender 
trees,  then  the  turn.  And  behind  the  turn  the  Ger- 
mans were  expected  to  come  in  from  Lokeren  every 
minute. 

And  we  had  to  find  the  houses  and  the  wounded 
men. 

The  Commandant  went  into  the  first  house  and 
came  out  again  very  quickly. 

The  man  in  the  room  inside  was  dead. 

We  went  on  up  the  village. 

Down  that  quiet  road  and  through  the  village, 
swerving  into  the  rough,  sandy  track  that  fringed 
the  paved  street,  a  battery  of  Belgian  artillery  came 
clattering  in  full  retreat.  The  leader  turned  his 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       165 

horse  violently  into  a  side  alley  and  plunged  down 
it.  I  was  close  behind  the  battery  when  it  turned; 
I  could  see  the  faces  of  the  men.  They  had  not 
that  terrible  look  that  Mr.  Davidson  told  me  he  saw 
on  the  faces  of  Belgians  in  retreat  from  [?]  Zele. 
There  was  no  terror  in  them,  only  a  sort  of  sullen 
annoyance  and  disgust. 

I  was  walking  beside  the  Commandant,  and  how 
I  managed  to  get  mixed  up  with  this  battery  I  don't 
know.  First  of  all  it  held  me  up  when  it  turned, 
then  when  I  got  through,  it  still  came  on  and  cut 
me  off  from  the  Commandant.  (The  rest  of  the 
Corps  were  with  the  Ambulance  in  the  middle  of  the 
village. ) 

Then,  through  the  plunging  train,  I  caught  sight 
of  the  innocent  Commandant,  all  by  himself,  stroll- 
ing serenely  towards  the  open  road,  where  beyond 
the  bend  the  Germans  were  presumably  pursuing 
the  battery.  It  was  terribly  alarming  to  see  the 
Commandant  advancing  to  meet  them,  all  alone, 
without  a  word  of  German  to  protect  him. 

There  were  gaps  in  the  retreat,  and  I  dashed 
through  one  of  them  (as  you  dash  through  the  traf- 
fic in  the  Strand  when  you're  in  a  hurry)  and  went 
after  the  Commandant  with  the  brilliant  idea  of  de- 
fending him  with  a  volley  of  bad  German  hurled 
at  the  enemy's  head. 


1 66      A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

And  the  Commandant  went  on,  indifferent  both  to 
his  danger  and  to  his  salvation,  and  disappeared 
down  a  little  lane  and  into  a  house  where  a  wounded 
man  was.  I  stood  at  the  end  of  the  lane  with  the 
sublime  intention  of  guarding  it. 

The  Commandant  came  out  presently.  He  looked 
as  if  he  were  steeped  in  a  large,  vague  leisure,  and 
he  asked  me  to  go  and  find  Mr.  Lambert  and  his 
scouting-car.  Mr.  Lambert  had  got  to  go  to  Lo- 
keren  to  fetch  some  wounded. 

So  I  ran  back  down  the  village  and  found  Mr. 
Lambert  and  his  car  at  the  other  end  of  it.  He  ac- 
cepted his  destiny  with  a  beautiful  transatlantic 
calm  and  dashed  off  to  Lokeren.  I  do  not  think 
he  took  his  wife  with  him  this  time.1 

I  went  back  to  see  if  the  Germans  had  got  any 
nearer  to  the  Commandant.  They  hadn't.  What 
with  dressings  and  bandages  and  looking  for 
wounded,  the  Ambulance  must  have  worked  for 
about  half  an  hour,  and  not  any  Germans  had  turned 
the  corner  yet. 

It  was  still  busy  getting  its  load  safely  stowed 
away.  Nothing  for  the  wretched  Secretary  to  do 
but  to  stand  there  at  the  far  end  of  the  village,  look- 
ing up  the  road  to  Lokeren.  There  was  a  most  sin- 

1He  did.  She  was  not  a  lady  whom  it  was  possible  to 
leave  behind  on  such  an  expedition. 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM       1 67 

gular  fascination  about  the  turn  of  that  road  beyond 
the  trees. 

Suddenly,  at  what  seemed  the  last  minute  of 
safety,  two  Belgian  stretcher-bearers,  without  a 
stretcher,  rushed  up  to  me.  They  said  there  was  a 
man  badly  wounded  in  some  house  somewhere  up 
the  road.  I  found  a  stretcher  and  went  off  with 
them  to  look  for  him. 

We  went  on  and  on  up  the  road.  It  couldn't 
have  been  more  than  a  few  hundred  yards,  really,  if 
as  much ;  but  it  felt  like  going  on  and  on ;  it  seemed 
impossible  to  find  that  house. 

There  was  something  odd  about  that  short  stretch 
of  grey  road  and  the  tall  trees  at  the  end  of  it  and 
the  turn.  These  things  appeared  in  a  queer,  vivid 
stillness,  as  if  they  were  not  there  on  their  own  ac- 
count, but  stood  in  witness  to  some  superior  reality. 
Through  them  you  were  somehow  assured  of  Real- 
ity with  a  most  singular  and  overpowering  certainty. 
You  were  aware  of  the  possibility  of  an  ensuing 
agony  and  horror  as  of  something  unreal  and  tran- 
sitory that  would  break  through  the  peace  of  it  in  a 
merely  episodical  manner.  Whatever  happened  to 
come  round  the  turn  of  the  road  would  simply  not 
matter. 

And  with  your  own  quick  movements  up  the  road 


1 68       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

there  came  that  steadily  mounting  thrill  which  is 
not  excitement,  or  anything  in  the  least  like  excite- 
ment, because  of  its  extreme  quietness.  This  thrill 
is  apt  to  cheat  you  by  stopping  short  of  the  ecstasy 
it  seems  to  promise.  But  this  time  it  didn't  stop 
short;  it  became  more  and  more  steady  and  more 
and  more  quiet  in  the  swing  of  its  vibration;  it  be- 
came ecstasy;  it  became  intense  happiness. 

It  lasted  till  we  reached  the  little  plantation  by 
the  roadside. 

While  it  lasted  you  had  the  sense  of  touching 
Reality  at  its  highest  point  in  a  secure  and  effortless 
consummation;  so  far  were  you  from  being  strung 
up  to  any  pitch. 

Then  came  the  plantation. 

Behind  the  plantation,  on  a  railway  siding,  a  train 
came  up  from  Lokeren  with  yet  another  load  of 
wounded.  And  in  the  train  there  was  confusion 
and  agitation  and  fear.  Belgian  Red  Cross  men 
hung  out  by  the  doors  of  the  train  and  clamoured 
excitedly  for  stretchers.  There  was  only  one 
stretcher,  the  one  we  had  brought  from  the  village. 

Somebody  complained  bitterly :  te  C'est  mal  ar- 
range. Avec  les  Allemands  sur  nos  dos! " 

Somebody  tried  to  grab  our  one  stretcher.  The 
two  bearers  seemed  inclined  to  give  it  up.  Nobody 
knew  where  our  badly  wounded  man  was.  Nobody 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       169 

seemed  very  eager  now  to  go  and  look  for  him. 
We  three  were  surrounded  and  ordered  to  give  up 
our  stretcher.  No  use  wasting  time  in  hunting  for 
one  man,  with  the  Germans  on  our  backs. 

None  of  the  men  we  were  helping  out  of  the  train 
were  seriously  hurt.  I  had  to  choose  between  my 
one  badly  wounded  man,  whom  we  hadn't  found, 
and  about  a  dozen  who  could  stumble  somehow  into 
safety.  But  my  two  stretcher-bearers  were  waver- 
ing badly,  and  it  was  all  I  could  do  to  keep  them 
firmly  to  their  job. 

Then  three  women  came  out  of  a  little  house  half 
hidden  by  the  plantation.  They  spoke  low,  for 
fear  the  Germans  should  overhear  them. 

"  He  is  here,"  they  said ;  "  he  is  here." 

The  stretcher-bearers  hurried  off  with  their 
stretcher.  The  train  unloaded  itself  somehow. 

The  man,  horribly  hurt,  with  a  wound  like  a  red 
pit  below  his  shoulder-blades,  was  brought  out  and 
laid  on  the  stretcher.  He  lay  there,  quietly,  on  his 
side,  in  a  posture  of  utter  resignation  to  anguish. 

He  was  a  Flamand,  clumsily  built;  he  had  a 
broad,  rather  ugly  face,  narrowing  suddenly  as  the 
fringe  of  his  whiskers  became  a  little  straggling 
beard.  But  to  me  he  was  the  most  beautiful  thing 
I  have  ever  seen.  And  I  loved  him.  I  do  not  think 
it  is  possible  to  love,  to  adore  any  creature  more 


I7O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

than  I  loved  and  adored  that  clumsy,  ugly  Flamand. 

He  was  my  first  wounded  man. 

For  I  tried,  I  still  try,  to  persuade  myself  that  if 
I  hadn't  bullied  my  two  bearers  and  repulsed  the  at- 
tack on  my  stretcher,  he  would  have  been  left  behind 
in  the  little  house  in  the  plantation. 

We  got  him  out  of  the  plantation  all  right  and 
on  to  the  paved  road.  Ursula  Dearmer  at  Ter- 
monde  with  her  Belgian  officer,  and  at  Zele  with  all 
her  wounded,  couldn't  have  been  happier  than  I  was 
with  my  one  Flamand. 

We  got  him  a  few  yards  down  the  road  all 
right. 

Then,  to  my  horror,  the  bearers  dumped  him  down 
on  the  paving-stones.  They  said  he  was  much  too 
heavy.  They  couldn't  possibly  carry  him  any  more 
unless  they  rested. 

I  didn't  think  it  was  exactly  the  moment  for  rest- 
ing, and  I  told  them  so.  The  Germans  hadn't  come 
round  the  turn,  and  probably  never  would  come; 
still,  you  never  know;  and  the  general  impression 
seemed  to  be  that  they  were  about  due. 

But  the  bearers  stood  stolidly  in  the  middle  of  the 
road  and  mopped  their  faces  and  puffed.  The  sit- 
uation began  to  feel  as  absurd  and  as  terrible  as  a 
nightmare. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       1 7! 

So  I  grabbed  one  end  of  the  stretcher  and  said  I'd 
carry  it  myself.  I  said  I  wasn't  very  strong,  and 
perhaps  I  couldn't  carry  it,  but  anyhow  I'd  try. 

They  picked  it  up  at  once  then,  and  went  off  at 
a  good  swinging  trot  over  the  paving-stones  that 
jolted  my  poor  Flamand  most  horribly.  I  told 
them  to  go  on  the  smooth  track  at  the  side.  They 
hailed  this  suggestion  as  a  most  brilliant  and  original 
idea. 

As  the  Flamand  was  brought  into  the  village,  the 
Ambulance  had  got  its  wounded  in,  and  was  ready 
to  go.  But  he  had  to  have  his  wound  dressed. 

He  lay  there  on  his  stretcher  in  the  middle  of  the 
village  street,  my  beloved  Flamand,  stripped  to  the 
waist,  with  the  great  red  pit  of  his  wound  yawning 
in  his  white  flesh.  I  had  to  look  on  while  the  Com- 
mandant stuffed  it  with  antiseptic  gauze. 

I  had  always  supposed  that  the  dressing  of  a 
wound  was  a  cautious  and  delicate  process.  But  it 
isn't.  There  is  a  certain  casual  audacity  about  it. 
The  Commandant's  hands  worked  rapidly  as  he 
rammed  cyanide  gauze  into  the  red  pit.  It  looked 
as  if  he  were  stuffing  an  old  crate  with  straw.  And 
it  was  all  over  in  a  moment.  There  seemed  some- 
thing indecent  in  the  haste  with  which  my  Flamand 
was  disposed  of. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

When  the  Commandant  observed  that  my 
Flamand's  wound  looked  much  worse  than  it  was, 
I  felt  hurt,  as  if  this  beloved  person  had  been 
slighted;  also  as  if  there  was  some  subtle  disparage- 
ment to  my  "find." 

I  rather  hoped  that  we  were  going  to  wait  till  the 
men  I  had  left  behind  in  the  plantation  had  come 
up.  But  the  car  was  fairly  full,  and  Ursula  Dear- 
mer  and  Janet  and  Mrs.  Lambert  were  told  off  to 

take  it  in  to  Z ,  leave  the  wounded  there  and 

come  back  for  the  rest.  I  was  to  walk  to  Z 

and  wait  there  for  the  returning  car. 

Nothing  would  have  pleased  me  better,  but  the 
distance  was  farther  than  the  Commandant  real- 
ized, farther,  perhaps,  than  was  desirable  in  the  cir- 
cumstances, so  I  was  ordered  to  get  on  the  car  and 
come  back  with  it. 

(Tom  the  chauffeur  is  perfectly  right.  There  are 
too  many  of  us.) 

We  got  away  long  before  the  Germans  turned 

the  corner,  if  they  ever  did  turn  it.  In  Z ,  which 

is  halfway  between  Lokeren  and  Ghent,  we  came 
upon  six  or  seven  fine  military  ambulances,  all  hud- 
dled together  as  if  they  sought  safety  in  companion- 
ship (why  none  of  them  had  been  sent  up  to  our 
village  I  can't  imagine).  Ursula  Dearmer,  with 


A    JOURNAL    OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       173 

admirable  presence  of  mind,  commandeered  one  of 
these  and  went  back  with  it  to  the  village,  so  that  we 
could  take  our  load  of  wounded  into  Ghent.  We 
did  this,  and  went  back  at  once. 

The  return  journey  was  a  tame  affair.  Before 

we  got  to  Z we  met  the  Commandant  and  the 

Chaplain  and  two  refugees,  in  Mr.  Lambert's  scout- 
ing-car,  towed  by  a  motor-wagon.  It  had  broken 
down  on  the  way  from  Lokeren.  We  took  them  on 
board  and  turned  back  to  Ghent. 

The  wounded  came  on  in  Ursula  Dearmer's  mili- 
tary car. 

Twenty-three  wounded  in  all  were  taken  from 
Lokeren  or  near  it  to-day.  Hundreds  had  to  be 
left  behind  in  the  German  lines. 

We  have  heard  that  Antwerp  is  burning;  that  the 
Government  is  removed  to  Ostend ;  that  all  the  Eng- 
lish have  left. 

There  are  a  great  many  British  wounded,  with 
nurses  and  Army  doctors,  in  Ghent.  Three  or  four 
British  have  been  brought  into  the  "  Flandria." 

One  of  them  is  a  young  British  officer,  Mr. . 

He  is  said  to  be  mortally  wounded. 

Dr.  Haynes  and  Dr.  Bird  have  not  gone.  They 
and  Dr.  have  joined  the  surgical  staff  of  the 


174       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

Hospital,  and  are  working  in  the  operating  theatre 
all  day.  They  have  got  enough  to  do  now  in  all 
conscience. 

All  night  there  has  been  a  sound  of  the  firing  of 
machine  guns  [  ?] .  At  first  it  was  like  the  barking 
of  all  the  dogs  in  Belgium.  I  thought  it  was  the 
dogs  of  Belgium,  till  I  discovered  a  deadly  rhythm 
and  precision  in  the  barking.1 

[Friday,  gth.] 

THE  Hospital  is  so  full  that  beds  have  been  put 
in  the  entrance  hall,  along  the  walls  by  the  big  ward 
and  the  secretarial  bureau.  In  the  recess  by  the 
ward  there  are  three  British  soldiers. 

There  are  some  men  standing  about  there  whose 
heads  and  faces  are  covered  with  a  thick  white  mask 
of  cotton-wool  like  a  diver's  helmet.  There  are 
three  small  holes  in  each  white  mask,  for  mouth  and 
eyes.  The  effect  is  appalling. 

These  are  the  men  whose  faces  have  been  burned 
by  shell-fire  at  Antwerp. 

The  Commandant  asked  me  to  come  with  him 
through  the  wards  and  find  all  the  British  wounded 

1  I'm  inclined  to  think  it  may  have  been  the  dogs  of  Bel- 
gium, after  all.  I  can't  think  where  the  guns  could  have  been. 
Antwerp  had  fallen.  It  might  have  been  the  bombardment  of 
Melle,  though. 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      U75 

who  are  well  enough  to  be  sent  home.  I  am  to  take 
their  names  and  dress  them  and  get  them  ready  to 
go  by  the  morning  train. 

There  are  none  in  the  upper  wards.  Mr.  

cannot  be  moved.  He  is  very  ill.  They  do  not 
think  he  will  live. 

There  are  three  downstairs  in  the  hall.  One  is 
well  enough  to  look  after  himself  (I  have  forgotten 
his  name).  One,  Russell,  is  wounded  in  the  knee. 
The  third,  Cameron,  a  big  Highlander,  is  wounded 
in  the  head.  He  wears  a  high  headdress  of  band- 
ages wound  round  and  round  many  times  like  an 
Indian  turban,  and  secured  by  more  bandages  round 
his  jaw  and  chin.  It  is  glued  tight  to  one  side  of 
his  head  with  clotted  blood.  Between  the  bandages 
his  sharp,  Highland  face  looks  piteous. 

I  am  to  dress  these  two  and  have  them  ready  by 

eleven.  Dr.  of  the  British  Field  Hospital, 

who  is  to  take  them  over,  comes  round  to  enter  their 
names  on  his  list. 

They  are  to  be  dressed  in  civilian  clothes  supplied 
by  the  Hospital. 

It  all  sounded  very  simple  until  you  tried  to  get 
the  clothes.  First  you  had  to  see  the  President, 
who  referred  you  to  the  Matron,  who  referred  you 
to  the  clerk  in  charge  of  the  clothing  department. 
An  infirmier  '(one  of  the  mysterious  officials  who 


1176       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

hang  about  the  hall  wearing  peaked  caps ;  the  prob- 
lem of  their  existence  was  now  solved  for  the  first 
time)  —  an  infirmier  was  despatched  to  find  the 
clerk.  The  clothing  department  must  have  been 
hidden  in  the  remotest  recesses  of  the  Hospital,  for 
it  was  ages  before  he  came  back  to  ask  me  all  over 
again  what  clothes  would  be  wanted.  He  was  a 
little  fat  man  with  bright,  curly  hair,  very  eager,  and 
very  cheerful  and  very  kind.  He  scuttled  off  again 
like  a  rabbit,  and  I  had  to  call  him  back  to  measure 
Russell.  And  when  he  had  measured  Russell,  with 
his  gay  and  amiable  alacrity,  Russell  and  I  had  to 
wait  until  he  came  back  with  the  clothes. 

I  had  made  up  my  mind  very  soon  that  it  would 
be  no  use  measuring  Cameron  for  any  clothes,  or 
getting  him  ready  for  any  train.  He  was  moving 
his  head  from  side  to  side  and  making  queer  moan- 
ing sounds  of  agitation  and  dismay.  He  had  asked 
for  a  cigarette,  which  somebody  had  brought  him. 
It  dropped  from  his  fingers.  Somebody  picked  it 
up  and  lit  it  and  stuck  it  in  his  mouth;  it  dropped 
again.  Then  I  noticed  something  odd  about  his  left 
arm;  he  was  holding  it  up  with  his  right  hand  and 
feeling  it.  It  dropped,  too,  like  a  dead  weight,  on 
the  counterpane.  Cameron  watched  its  behaviour 
with  anguish.  He  complained  that  his  left  arm  was 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

all  numb  and  too  heavy  to  hold  up.  Also  he  said 
he  was  afraid  to  be  moved  and  taken  away. 

It  struck  me  that  Cameron's  head  must  be 
smashed  in  on  the  right  side  and  that  some  pressure 
on  his  brain  was  causing  paralysis.  It  was  quite 
clear  that  he  couldn't  be  moved.  So  I  sent  for  one 
of  the  Belgian  doctors  to  come  and  look  at  him,  and 
keep  him  in  the  Hospital. 

The  Belgian  doctor  found  that  Cameron's  head 
was  smashed  in  on  the  right  side,  and  that  there 
was  pressure  on  his  brain,  causing  paralysis  in  his 
left  arm. 

He  is  to  be  kept  in  the  Hospital  and  operated  on 
this  morning.  They  may  save  him  if  they  can  re- 
move the  pressure. 

It  seemed  ages  before  the  merry  little  infirmier 
came  back  with  Russell's  clothes.  And  when  he 
did  come  he  brought  socks  that  were  too  tight,  and 
went  back  and  brought  socks  that  were  too  large, 
and  a  shirt  that  was  too  tight  and  trousers  that  were 
too  long.  Then  he  went  back,  eager  as  ever,  and 
brought  drawers  that  were  too  tight,  and  more  trou- 
sers that  were  too  short.  He  brought  boots  that 
were  too  large  and  boots  that  were  too  tight;  and 
he  had  to  be  sent  back  again  for  slippers.  Last  of 
all  he  brought  a  shirt  which  made  Russell  smile  and 


A  JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

mutter  something  about  being  dressed  in  all  the 
colours  of  the  rainbow;  and  a  black  cutaway  morn- 
ing coat,  and  a  variety  of  hats,  all  too  small  for 
Russell. 

Then  when  you  had  made  a  selection,  you  began 
to  try  to  get  Russell  into  all  these  things  that  were 
too  tight  or  too  loose  for  him.  The  socks  were  the 
worst.  The  right-hand  one  had  to  be  put  on  very 
carefully,  by  quarter  inches  at  a  time;  the  least  tug 
on  the  sock  would  give  Russell  an  excruciating  pain 
in  his  wounded  knee;  and  Russell  was  all  for  vio- 
lence and  haste;  he  was  so  afraid  of  being  left  be- 
hind. 

Though  he  called  me  "  Sister,"  I  felt  certain  that 
Russell  must  know  that  I  wasn't  a  trained  nurse  and 
that  he  was  the  first  wounded  man  I  had  ever  dressed 
in  my  life.  However,  I  did  get  him  dressed,  some- 
how, with  the  help  of  the  little  infirmier,  and  a  won- 
derful sight  he  was,  in  the  costume  of  a  Belgian 
civilian. 

What  tried  him  most  were  the  hats.  He  refused 
a  peaked  cap  which  the  infirmier  pressed  on  him,  and 
compromised  finally  on  a  sort  of  checked  cricket  cap 
that  just  covered  the  extreme  top  of  his  head.  We 
got  him  off  in  time,  after  all. 

Then  two  infirmiers  came  with  a  stretcher  and 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       179 

carried  Cameron  upstairs  to  the  operating  theatre, 
and  I  went  up  and  waited  with  him  in  the  corridor 
till  the  surgeons  were  ready  for  him.  He  had 
grown  drowsy  and  indifferent  by  now. 

I  have  missed  the  Ambulance  going  out  to 
Lokeren,  and  have  had  to  stay  behind. 

Two  ladies  called  to  see  Mr. .  One  of  them 

was  Miss  Ashley-Smith,  who  had  him  in  her  ward 
at  Antwerp.  I  took  them  over  the  Hospital  to  find 
his  room,  which  is  on  the  second  story.  His  name 
—  his  names  —  in  thick  Gothic  letters,  were  on  a 
white  card  by  the  door. 

He  was  asleep  and  the  nurse  could  not  let  them 
see  him. 

Miss  Ashley-Smith  and  her  friend  are  staying  in 
the  Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre,  where  the  British  Field 
Hospital  has  taken  some  of  its  wounded. 

Towards  one  o'clock  news  came  of  heavy  fight- 
ing. The  battle  is  creeping  nearer  to  us;  it  has 
stretched  from  Zele  and  Quatrecht  to  Melle,  four 
and  a  half  miles  from  Ghent.  They  are  saying  that 
the  Germans  may  enter  Ghent  to-day,  in  an  hour  — 
half  an  hour !  It  will  be  very  awkward  for  us  and 
for  our  wounded  if  they  do,  as  both  our  ambulance 
cars  are  out. 

Later  news  of  more  fighting  at  Quatrecht. 


l8o      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

[Afternoon.] 

THE  Commandant  has  come  back.  They  were  at 
Quatrecht,  not  Lokeren. 

Mr. is  awake  now.  The  Commandant  has 

taken  me  to  see  him. 

He  is  lying  in  one  of  the  officers'  wards,  a  small 
room,  with  bare  walls  and  a  blond  light,  looking 
south.  There  are  two  beds  in  this  room,  set  side 
by  side.  In  the  one  next  the  door  there  is  a  young 
French  officer.  He  is  very  young :  a  boy  with  sleek 
black  hair  and  smooth  rose-leaf  skin,  shining  and 
fresh  as  if  he  had  never  been  near  the  smoke  and 
dirt  of  battle.  He  is  sitting  up  reading  a  French 
magazine.  He  is  wounded  in  the  leg.  His  crutches 
are  propped  up  against  the  wall. 

Stretched  on  his  back  in  the  further  bed  there  is 
a  very  tall  young  Englishman.  The  sheet  is  drawn 
very  tight  over  his  chest;  his  face  is  flushed  and  he 
is  breathing  rapidly,  in  short  jerks.  At  first  you  do 
not  see  that  he,  too,  is  not  more  than  a  boy,  for  he 
is  so  big  and  tall,  and  a  little  brown  feathery  beard 
has  begun  to  curl  about  his  jaw  and  chin. 

When  I  came  to  him  and  the  Commandant  told 
him  my  name,  he  opened  his  eyes  wide  with  a  look 
of  startled  recognition.  He  said  he  knew  me;  he 
had  seen  me  somewhere  in  England.  He  was  so 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       l8l 

certain  about  it  that  he  persuaded  me  that  I  had 
seen  him  somewhere.  But  we  can  neither  of  us  re- 
member where  or  when.  They  say  he  is  not  per- 
fectly conscious  all  the  time. 

We  stayed  with  him  for  a  few  minutes  till  he 
went  off  to  sleep  again. 

None  of  the  doctors  think  that  he  can  live.  He 
was  wounded  in  front  with  mitrailleuse;  eight  bul- 
lets in  his  body.  He  has  been  operated  on.  How 
he  survived  the  operation  and  the  journey  on  the 
top  of  it  I  can't  imagine.  And  now  general  peri- 
tonitis has  set  in.  It  doesn't  look  as  if  he  had  a 
chance. 

We  have  heard  that  all  the  War  Correspondents 
have  been  sent  out  of  Ghent. 

Numbers  of  British  troops  came  in  to-day. 

Went  up  to  see  Mr.  Foster,  who  is  in  his  room, 
ill.  It  is  hard  lines  that  he  should  have  had  this 
accident  when  he  has  been  working  so  splendidly. 
And  it  wasn't  his  fault,  either.  One  of  the  Belgian 
bearers  slipped  with  his  end  of  a  stretcher  when  they 
were  carrying  a  heavy  man,  and  Mr.  Foster  got  hurt 
in  trying  to  right  the  balance  and  save  his  wounded 
man.  He  is  very  much  distressed  at  having  to  lie 
up  and  be  waited  on. 


l82       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

Impossible  to  write  a  Journal  or  any  articles  while 
I  am  in  the  Hospital,  and  there  is  no  table  yet  in  my 
room  at  the  Hotel  Cecil. 

The  first  ambulance  car,  with  the  chauffeur  Bert 
and  Mr.  Riley,  has  come  back  from  Melle,  where 
they  left  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  and  Dr.  Wilson. 
They  went  back  again  in  the  afternoon. 

They  are  all  out  now  except  poor  Mr.  Foster 
and  Mrs.  Lambert,  who  is  somewhere  with  her  hus- 
band. 

I  am  the  only  available  member  of  the  Corps  left 
in  the  Hospital! 

[3-30-] 
No  Germans  have  appeared  yet. 

I  was  sitting  up  in  the  mess-room,  making  entries 
in  the  Day-Book,  when  I  was  sent  for.  Somebody 
or  something  had  arrived,  and  was  waiting  below. 

On  the  steps  of  the  Hospital  I  found  two  brand- 
new  British  chauffeurs  in  brand-new  suits  of  khaki. 
Behind  them,  drawn  up  in  the  entry,  were  two  brand- 
new  Daimler  motor-ambulance  cars. 

I  thought  it  was  a  Field  Ambulance  that  had  lost 
itself  on  the  way  to  France.  The  chauffeurs  (they 
had  beautiful  manners,  and  were  very  spick  and 
span,  and  one  pleased  me  by  his  remarkable  resem- 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM       183 

blance  to  the  editor  of  the  English  Review)  — the 
chauffeurs  wanted  to  know  whether  they  had  come 
to  the  right  place.  And  of  course  they  hardly  had, 
if  all  the  British  Red  Cross  ambulance  cars  were  go- 
ing into  France. 

Then  they  explained. 

They  were  certainly  making  for  Ghent.  The 
British  Red  Cross  Society  had  sent  them  there. 
They  were  only  anxious  to  know  whether  they  had 
come  to  the  right  Hospital,  the  Hospital  where  the 
English  Field  Ambulance  was  quartered. 

Yes :  that  was  right.     They  had  been  sent  for  us. 

They  had  just  come  up  from  Ostend,  and  they 
had  not  been  ten  minutes  in  Ghent  before  orders 
came  through  for  an  ambulance  to  be  sent  at  once  to 
Melle. 

The  only  available  member  of  the  Corps  was  its 
Secretary  and  Reporter.  To  that  utterly  untrained 
and  supremely  inappropriate  person  Heaven  sent 
this  incredible  luck. 

When  I  think  how  easily  I  might  have  missed  it ! 
If  I'd  gone  for  a  stroll  in  the  town.  If  I'd  sat  five 
minutes  longer  with  Mr.  Foster.  If  the  landlord 
of  the  Hotel  Cecil  had  kept  his  word  and  given  me 
a  table,  when  I  should,  to  a  dead  certainty,  have 
been  writing  this  wretched  Journal  at  the  ineffable 
moment  when  the  chauffeurs  arrived. 


184      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

I  am  glad  to  think  that  I  had  just  enough  morality 
left  to  play  fair  with  Mrs.  Lambert.  I  did  try  to 
find  her,  so  that  she  shouldn't  miss  it.  Somebody 
said  she  was  in  one  of  the  restaurants  on  the  Place 
with  her  husband.  I  looked  in  all  the  restaurants 
and  she  wasn't  in  one  of  them.  The  finger  of 
Heaven  pointed  unmistakably  to  the  Secretary  and 
Reporter. 

There  was  a  delay  of  ten  minutes,  no  more,  while 
I  got  some  cake  and  sandwiches  for  the  hungry 
chauffeurs  and  took  them  to  the  bureau  to  have  their 
brassards  stamped.  And  in  every  minute  of  the  ten 
I  suffered  tortures  while  we  waited.  I  thought 
something  must  happen  to  prevent  my  taking  that 
ambulance  car  out.  I  thought  my  heart  would  leave 
off  beating  and  I  should  die  before  we  started  (I 
believe  people  feel  like  this  sometimes  before  their 
wedding  night).  I  thought  the  Commandant  would 
come  back  and  send  out  Ursula  Dearmer  instead. 
I  thought  the  Military  Power  would  come  down 
from  its  secret  hiding-place  and  stop  me.  But  none 
of  these  things  happened.  At  the  last  moment,  I 
thought  that  M.  C 

M.  C was  the  Belgian  Red  Cross  guide  who 

took  us  into  Antwerp.  To  M.  C I  said  simply 

and  firmly  that  I  was  going.  The  functions  of  the 
Secretary  and  Reporter  had  never  been  very  clearly 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       185 

defined,  and  this  was  certainly  not  the  moment  to 

define  them.  M.  C ,  in  his  innocence,  accepted 

me  with  confidence  and  a  chivalrous  gravity  that  left 
nothing  to  be  desired. 

The  chauffeur  Newlands  (the  leaner  and  darker 
one)  declared  himself  ready  for  anything.  All  he 
wanted  was  to  get  to  work.  Poor  Ascot,  who  was 
so  like  my  friend  the  editor,  had  to  be  content  with 
his  vigil  in  the  back  yard. 

At  last  we  got  off.  I  might  have  trusted  Heaven. 
The  getting  off  was  a  foregone  conclusion,  for  we 
went  along  the  south-east  road,  which  had  not 
worked  its  mysterious  fascination  for  nothing. 

At  a  fork  where  two  roads  go  into  Ghent  we  saw 
one  of  our  old  ambulance  cars  dashing  into  Ghent 
down  the  other  road  on  our  left.  It  was  beyond 
hail.  Heaven  meant  us  to  go  on  uninterrupted  and 
unchallenged. 

I  had  not  allowed  for  trouble  at  the  barrier.  There 
always  is  a  barrier,  which  may  be  anything  from  a 
mile  to  four  miles  from  the  field  or  village  where 
the  wounded  are.  Yesterday  on  the  way  to  Lokeren 
the  barrier  was  at  Z .  To-day  it  was  some- 
where half-way  between  Ghent  and  Melle. 

None  of  us  had  ever  quite  got  to  the  bottom  of 
the  trouble  at  the  barrier.  We  know  that  the  Bel- 
gian authorities  wisely  refused  all  responsibility. 


1 86       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

Properly  speaking,  our  ambulances  were  not  sup- 
posed to  go  nearer  than  a  certain  safe  distance  from 
the  enemy's  firing-line.  For  two  reasons.  First, 
it  stood  the  chance  of  being  shelled  or  taken  pris- 
oner. Second,  there  was  a  very  natural  fear  that 
it  might  draw  down  the  enemy's  fire  on  the  Belgians. 
Our  huge,  lumbering  cars,  with  their  brand-new 
khaki  hoods  and  flaming  red  crosses  on  a  white 
ground,  were  an  admirable  mark  for  German  guns. 
But  as  the  Corps  in  this  case  went  into  the  firing- 
line  on  foot,  I  do  not  think  that  the  risk  was  to  the 
Belgians.  So,  though  in  theory  we  stopped  outside 
the  barriers,  in  practice  we  invariably  got  through. 

The  new  car  was  stopped  at  the  barrier  now  by 
the  usual  Belgian  Army  Medical  Officer.  We  were 
not  to  go  on  to  Melle. 

I  said  that  we  had  orders  to  go  on  to  Melle ;  and 
I  meant  to  go  on  to  Melle.  The  Medical  Officer 
said  again  that  we  were  not  to  go,  and  I  said  again 
that  we  were  going. 

Then  that  Belgian  Army  Medical  Officer  began 
to  tell  us  what  I  imagine  is  the  usual  barrier  tale. 

There  were  any  amount  of  ambulances  at  Melle. 

There  were  no  wounded  at  Melle. 

And  in  any  case  this  ambulance  wouldn't  be  al- 
lowed to  go  there.  And  then  the  usual  battle  of  the 
barrier  had  place. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       187 

It  was  one  against  three.  For  M.  C went 

over  to  the  enemy,  and  the  chauffeur  Newlands, 
confronted  by  two  official  adversaries  in  uniform, 
became  deafer  and  deafer  to  my  voice  in  his  right 
ear. 

First,  the  noble  and  chivalrous  Belgian  Red  Cross 
guide,  with  an  appalling  treachery,  gave  the  order 
to  turn  the  car  round  to  Ghent.  I  gave  the  counter 
order.  Newlands  wavered  for  one  heroic  moment ; 
then  he  turned  the  car  round. 

I  jumped  out  and  went  up  to  the  Army  Medical 
Officer  and  delivered  a  frontal  attack,  discharging 
execrable  French. 

"  No  wounded  ?  You  tell  us  that  tale  every  day, 
and  there  are  always  wounded.  Do  you  want  any 
more  of  them  to  die?  I  mean  to  go  on  and  I  shall 
go  on." 

I  didn't  ask  him  how  he  thought  he  could  stop 
one  whom  Heaven  had  predestined  tQ  go  on  to 
Melle. 

M.  C had  got  out  now  to  see  the  fight. 

The  Army  Medical  Officer  looked  the  Secretary 
and  Reporter  up  and  down,  taking  in  that  vision 
of  inappropriateness  and  disproportion.  There  was 
a  faint,  a  very  faint  smile  under  the  ferocity  of  his 
moustache,  the  first  sign  of  relenting.  The  Secre- 
tary and  Reporter  saw  the  advantage  and  followed, 


1 88       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

as  you  might  follow  a  bend  in  the  enemy's  line  of 
defence. 

"  I  want  to  go  on  "  (placably,  almost  pathetically) . 
Je  veux  continuer.  Do  you  by  any  chance  imagine 
we're  afraid?" 

At  this,  M.  C ,  the  Belgian  guide,  smiled  too, 

under  a  moustache  not  quite  so  ferocious  as  the 
Army  Medical  Officer's.  They  shrugged  their  shoul- 
ders. They  had  done  their  duty.  Anyhow,  they 
had  lost  the  battle. 

The  guide  and  the  reporter  jumped  back  into 
the  car;  I  didn't  hear  anybody  give  the  order,  but 
the  chauffeur  Newlands  turned  her  round  in  no 
time,  and  we  dashed  past  the  barrier  and  into 
Melle. 

The  village  street,  that  had  been  raked  by  mitrail- 
leuses from  the  field  beyond  it,  was  quiet  when  we 
came  in,  and  almost  deserted.  Up  a  side  street, 
propped  against  the  wall  of  a  stable,  four  wounded 
Frenchmen  waited  for  the  ambulance.  A  fifth, 
shot  through  the  back  of  his  head  by  a  dum-dum 
bullet,  lay  in  front  of  them  on  a  stretcher  that 
dripped  blood. 

I  found  Mr.  Grierson  in  the  village,  left  behind 
by  the  last  ambulance.  He  was  immensely  aston- 
ished at  my  arrival  with  the  new  car.  He  had  with 
him  an  eager  little  Englishman,  one  of  the  sort  that 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       189 

tracks  an  ambulance  everywhere  on  the  off-chance 
of  being  useful. 

And  the  Cure  of  the  village  was  there.  He  wore 
the  Red  Cross  brassard  on  the  sleeve  of  his  cassock 
and  he  carried  the  Host  in  a  little  bag  of  purple 
silk. 

They  told  me  that  the  village  had  been  fired  on 
by  shrapnel  a  few  minutes  before  we  came  into  it. 
They  said  we  were  only  a  hundred  [  ?]  yards  from 
the  German  trenches.  We  could  see  the  edge  of  the 
field  from  the  village  street.  The  trenches  [  ?]  were 
at  the  bottom  of  it. 

It  was  Baerlaere  all  over  again.  The  firing 
stopped  as  soon  as  I  came  within  range  of  it,  and 
didn't  begin  again  until  we  had  got  away. 

You  couldn't  take  any  interest  in  the  firing  or 
the  German  trenches,  or  the  eager  little  English- 
man, or  anything.  You  couldn't  see  anything  but 
those  five  wounded  men,  or  think  of  anything  but 
how  to  get  them  into  the  ambulance  as  painlessly  and 
in  as  short  a  time  as  possible. 

The  man  on  the  dripping  stretcher  was  mortally 
wounded.  He  was  lifted  in  first,  very  slowly  and 
gently. 

The  Cure  climbed  in  after  him,  carrying  the  Host. 

He  kneeled  there  while  the  blood  from  the 
wounded  head  oozed  through  the  bandages  and 


190 

through  the  canvas  of  the  stretcher  to  the  floor  and 
to  the  skirts  of  his  cassock. 

We  waited. 

There  was  no  ugly  haste  in  the  Supreme  Act ;  the 
three  mortal  moments  that  it  lasted  (it  could  not 
have  lasted  more)  were  charged  with  immortality, 
while  the  Cure  remained  kneeling  in  the  pool  of 
blood. 

I  shall  never  become  a  Catholic.  But  if  I  do, 
it  will  be  because  of  the  Cure  of  Melle,  who  turned 
our  new  motor  ambulance  into  a  sanctuary  after 
the  French  soldier  had  baptized  it  with  his  blood. 
I  have  never  seen,  I  never  shall  see,  anything  more 
beautiful,  more  gracious  than  the  Soul  that  appeared 
in  his  lean,  dark  face  and  in  the  straight,  slender 
body  under  the  black  soutane.  In  his  simple,  in- 
evitable gestures  you  saw  adoration  of  God,  contempt 
for  death,  and  uttermost  compassion. 

It  was  all  over.  I  received  his  missal  and  his  bag 
of  purple  silk  as  he  gathered  his  cassock  about  him 
and  came  down. 

I  asked  him  if  anything  could  be  done.  His  eyes 
smiled  as  he  answered.  But  his  lips  quivered  as  he 
took  again  his  missal  and  his  purple  bag. 

M.  C is  now  glad  that  we  went  on  to  Melle. 

We  helped  the  four  other  wounded  men  in.  They 
sat  in  a  row  alongside  the  stretcher. 


I  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  ambulance,  at  the  feet 
of  the  dying  man,  by  the  handles  of  the  stretcher. 

At  the  last  minute  the  Chaplain  jumped  on  to  the 
step.  So  did  the  little  eager  Englishman.  Hang- 
ing on  to  the  hood  and  swaying  with  the  rush  of  the 
car,  he  talked  continually.  He  talked  from  the  mo- 
ment we  left  Melle  to  the  moment  when  we  landed 
him  at  his  street  in  Ghent ;  explaining  over  and  over 
again  the  qualifications  that  justified  him  in  attach- 
ing himself  to  ambulances.  He  had  lived  fourteen 
years  in  Ghent.  He  could  speak  French  and  Flem- 
ish. 

I  longed  for  the  eager  little  Englishman  to  stop. 
I  longed  for  his  street  to  come  and  swallow  him 
up.  He  had  lived  in  Ghent  fourteen  years.  He 
could  speak  Flemish  and  French.  I  felt  that  I 
couldn't  bear  it  if  he  went  on  a  minute  longer.  I 
wanted  to  think.  The  dying  man  lay  close  behind 
me,  very  straight  and  stiff;  his  poor  feet  stuck  out 
close  under  my  hand. 

But  I  couldn't  think.  The  little  eager  English- 
man went  on  swaying  and  talking. 

He  had  lived  fourteen  years  in  Ghent. 

He  could  speak  French  and  Flemish. 

The  dying  man  was  still  alive  when  he  was  lifted 
out  of  the  ambulance. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

He  died  that  evening. 


The  Commandant  is  pleased  with  his  new  am- 
bulances. He  is  not  altogether  displeased  with 
me. 

We  must  have  been  very  quick.  For  it  was  the 
Commandant's  car  that  we  passed  at  the  fork  of 
the  road.  And  either  he  arrived  a  few  minutes  after 
we  got  back  or  we  arrived  just  as  he  had  got  in. 
Anyhow,  we  met  in  the  porch. 

He  and  Ursula  Dearmer  and  I  went  back  to  Melle 
again  at  once,  in  the  new  car.  It  was  nearly  dark 
when  we  got  there. 

We  found  Mrs.  Torrence  and  little  Janet  in  the 
village.  They  and  Dr.  Wilson  had  been  working 
all  day  long  picking  up  wounded  off  the  field  out- 
side it.  The  German  lines  are  not  far  off  —  at  the 
bottom  of  the  field.  I  think  only  a  small  number 
of  their  guns  could  rake  the  main  street  of  the  vil- 
lage where  we  were.  Their  shell  went  over  our 
heads  and  over  the  roofs  of  the  houses  towards  the 
French  batteries  on  this  side  of  the  village.  There 
must  have  been  a  rush  from  the  German  lines  across 
this  field,  and  the  French  batteries  have  done  their 
work  well,  for  Mrs.  Torrence  said  the  German  dead 
are  lying  thick  there  among  the  turnips.  She  and 
Janet  and  Dr.  Wilson  had  been  under  fire  for  eight 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

hours  on  end,  lifting  men  and  carrying  stretchers. 
I  don't  know  whether  their  figures  (the  two  girls 
in  khaki  tunics  and  breeches)  could  be  seen  from 
the  German  lines,  but  they  just  trudged  on  between 
the  furrows,  and  over  the  turnip-tops,  serenely  re- 
gardless of  the  enemy,  carefully  sorting  the  wounded 
from  the  dead,  with  the  bullets  whizzing  past  their 
noses. 

Of  bullets  Mrs.  Torrence  said,  indeed,  that  eight 
hours  of  them  were  rather  more  than  she  cared  for; 
and  of  carrying  stretchers  over  a  turnip-field,  that 
it  was  as  much  as  she  and  Janet  could  do.  But  they 
came  back  from  it  without  turning  a  hair.  I  have 
seen  women  more  dishevelled  after  tramping  a  tur- 
nip-field in  a  day's  partridge-shooting. 

They  went  off  somewhere  to  find  Dr.  Wilson; 
and  we  —  Ursula  Dearmer,  the  Commandant  and  I 
—  hung  about  the  village  waiting  for  the  wounded 
to  be  brought  in.  The  village  was  crowded  with 
French  and  Belgian  troops  when  we  came  into  it. 
Then  they  gathered  together  and  went  on  towards 
the  field,  and  we  followed  them  up  the  street.  They 
called  to  us  to  stay  under  cover,  or,  if  we  must  walk 
up  the  street,  to  keep  close  under  the  houses,  as  the 
bullets  might  come  flying  at  us  any  minute. 

No  bullets  came,  however.  It  was  like  Baerlaere 
* —  it  was  like  Lokeren  —  it  was  like  every  place  I've 


194 

been  in,  so  far.  Nothing  came  as  long  as  there  was 
a  chance  of  its  getting  me. 

After  that  we  drove  down  to  the  station.  While 
we  were  hanging  about  there,  a  shell  was  hurled 
over  this  side  of  the  village  from  the  German  bat- 
teries. It  careered  over  the  roofs,  with  a  track  that 
was  luminous  in  the  dusk,  like  a  curved  sheet  of 
lightning.  I  don't  know  where  it  fell  and  burst. 

We  were  told  to  stand  out  from  under  the  station 
building  for  fear  it  should  be  struck. 

When  we  got  back  into  the  village  we  went  into 
the  inn  and  waited  there  in  a  long,  narrow  room, 
lit  by  a  few  small  oil-lamps  and  crammed  with  sol- 
diers. They  were  eating  and  drinking  in  vehement 
haste.  Wherever  the  light  from  the  lamps  fell  on 
them,  you  saw  faces  flushed  and  scarred  under  a 
blur  of  smoke  and  grime.  Here  and  there  a  band- 
age showed  up,  violently  white.  On  the  tables  enor- 
mous quantities  of  bread  appeared  and  disappeared. 

These  soldiers,  with  all  their  vehemence  and  vio- 
lence, were  exceedingly  lovable.  One  man  brought 
me  a  chair;  another  brought  bread  and  offered  it. 
Charming  smiles  flashed  through  the  grime. 

At  last,  when  we  had  found  one  man  with  a 
wounded  hand,  we  got  into  the  ambulance  and  went 
back  to  Ghent. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       1 95 

[Saturday,  ioth.] 

I  HAVE  got  something  to  do  again  —  at  last ! 

I  am  to  help  to  look  after  Mr. .  He  has  the 

pick  of  the  Belgian  Red  Cross  women  to  nurse  him, 
and  they  are  angelically  kind  and  very  skilful,  but 
he  is  not  very  happy  with  them.  He  says :  "  These 
dear  people  are  so  good  to  me,  but  I  can't  make  out 
what  they  say.  I  can't  tell  them  what  I  want." 
He  is  pathetically  glad  to  have  any  English  people 
with  him.  (Even  I  am  a  little  better  than  a  Bel- 
gian whom  he  cannot  understand.) 

I  sat  with  him  all  morning.  The  French  boy 
has  gone  and  he  is  alone  in  his  room  now.  It 
seems  that  the  kind  Chaplain  sat  up  with  him  all 
last  night  after  his  hard  day  at  Melle.  (I  wish 
now  I  had  stood  by  the  Chaplain  with  his  Matins. 
He  has  never  tried  to  have  them  again  —  given 
us  up  as  an  unholy  crew,  all  except  Mr.  Foster, 
whom  he  clings  to.) 

The  morning  went  like  half  an  hour,  while  it  was 
going;  but  when  it  was  over  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been 
nursing  for  weeks  on  end.  There  were  so  many 
little  things  to  be  done,  and  so  much  that  you 
mustn't  do,  and  the  anxiety  was  appalling.  I  don't 
suppose  there  is  a  worse  case  in  the  Hospital.  He 


196       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

is  perhaps  a  shade  better  to-day,  but  none  of  the 
medical  staff  think  that  he  can  live. 

Madame  E and  Dr.  Bird  have  shown  me 

what  to  4o,  and  what  not  to  do.  I  must  keep  him 
all  the  time  in  the  same  position.  I  must  give 
him  sips  of  iced  broth,  and  little  pieces  of  ice  to 
suck  every  now  and  then.  I  must  not  let  him  try 
to  raise  himself  in  bed.  I  must  not  try  to  lift 
him  myself.  If  we  do  lift  him  we  must  keep  his 
body  tilted  at  the  same  angle.  I  must  not 
give  him  any  hot  drinks  and  not  too  much  cold 
drink. 

And  he  is  six  foot  high,  so  tall  that  his  feet 
come  through  the  blankets  at  the  bottom  of  the 
bed;  and  he  keeps  sinking  down  in  it  all  the  time 
and  wanting  to  raise  himself  up  again.  And  his 
fever  makes  him  restless.  And  he  is  always  thirsty 
and  he  longs  for  hot  tea  more  than  iced  water,  and 
for  more  iced  water  than  is  good  for  him.  The 
iced  broth  that  is  his  only  nourishment  he  does  not 
want  at  all. 

And  then  he  must  be  kept  very  quiet.  I  must 
not  let  him  talk  more  than  is  necessary  to  tell  me 
what  he  wants,  or  he  will  die  of  exhaustion.  And 
what  he  wants  is  to  talk  every  minute  that  he  is 
awake. 

He  drops  off  to  sleep,  breathing  in  jerks  and  with 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       1 97 

a  terrible  rapidity.  And  I  think  it  will  be  all  right 
as  long  as  he  sleeps.  But  his  sleep  only  lasts  for 
a  few  minutes.  I  hear  the  rhythm  of  his  breathing 
alter ;  it  slackens  and  goes  slow ;  then  it  jerks  again, 
and  I  know  that  he  is  awake. 

And  then  he  begins.  He  says  things  that  tear 
at  your  heart.  He  has  looks  and  gestures  that 
break  it  —  the  adorable,  wilful  smile  of  a  child  that 
knows  that  it  is  being  watched  when  you  find  his 
hand  groping  too  often  for  the  glass  of  iced  water 
that  stands  beside  his  bed ;  a  still  more  adorable  and 
utterly  gentle  submission  when  you  take  the  glass 
from  him;  when  you  tell  him  not  to  say  anything 
more  just  yet  but  to  go  to  sleep  again.  You  feel 
as  if  you  were  guilty  of  act  after  act  of  nameless 
and  abominable  cruelty. 

He  sticks  to  it  that  he  has  seen  me  before,  that 
he  has  heard  of  me,  that  his  people  know  me.  And 
he  wants  to  know  what  I  do  and  where  I  live  and 
where  it  was  that  he  saw  me.  Once,  when  I 
thought  he  had  gone  to  sleep,  I  heard  him  begin 
again :  "  Where  did  you  say  you  lived  ?  " 

I  tell  him.     And  I  tell  him  to  go  to  sleep  again. 

He  closes  his  eyes  obediently  and  opens  them  the 
next  instant. 

"  I  say,  may  I  come  and  call  on  you  when  we 
get  back  to  England  ?  " 


198       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

You  can  only  say:  "  Yes.  Of  course,"  and  tell 
him  to  go  to  sleep. 

His  voice  is  so  strong  and  clear  that  I  could  al- 
most believe  that  he  will  get  back  and  that  some 
day  I  shall  look  up  and  see  him  standing  at  my 
garden  gate. 

Mercifully,  when  I  tell  him  to  go  to  sleep  again, 
he  does  go  to  sleep.  And  his  voice  is  a  little  clearer 
and  stronger  every  time  he  wakes. 

And  so  the  morning  goes  on.  The  only  thing  he 
wants  you  to  do  for  him  is  to  sponge  his  hands  and 
face  with  iced  water  and  to  give  him  little  bits  of 
ice  to  suck.  Over  and  over  again  I  do  these  things. 
And  over  and  over  again  he  asks  me,  "  Do  you 
mind?" 


He  wears  a  little  grey  woollen  cord  round  his 
neck.  Something  has  gone  from  it.  Whatever  he 
has  lost,  they  have  left  him  his  little  woollen  cord, 
as  if  some  immense  importance  attached  to  it. 


He  has  fallen  into  a  long  doze.  And  at  the  end 
of  the  morning  I  left  him  sleeping. 

Some  of  the  Corps  have  brought  in  trophies  from 
the  battlefield  —  a  fine  grey  cloak  with  a  scarlet 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM       199 

collar,  a  spiked  helmet,  a  cuff  with  three  buttons 
cut  from  the  coat  of  a  dead  German. 

These  things  make  me  sick.  I  see  the  body  under 
the  cloak,  the  head  under  the  helmet,  and  the  dead 
hand  under  the  cuff. 


[Afternoon.] 

SAW  Mr.  Foster.  He  is  to  be  sent  back  to  Eng- 
land for  an  operation.  Dr.  Wilson  is  to  take  him. 
He  asked  me  if  I  thought  the  Commandant  would 
take  him  back  again  when  he  is  better. 

Saw  the  President  about  Mr.  Foster.  He  will 
not  hear  of  his  going  back  to  England.  He  wants 
him  to  stay  in  the  Hospital  and  be  operated  on  here. 
He  promises  the  utmost  care  and  attention.  He  is 
most  distressed  to  think  that  he  should  go. 

It  doesn't  occur  to  him  in  his  kindness  that  it 
would  be  much  more  distressing  if  the  Germans 
came  into  Ghent  and  interrupted  the  operation. 

Cabled  Miss  F.  about  her  Glasgow  ambulance, 
asking  her  to  pay  her  staff  if  her  funds  ran  to  it. 
Cabled  British  Red  Cross  to  send  Mr.  Gould  and 
his  scouting-car  here  instead  of  to  France.  Cabled 
Mr.  Gould  to  get  the  British  Red  Cross  to  send 
him  here. 

Mr.  Lambert  has  been  ill  with  malaria.     He  has 


2OO       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

gone  back  to  England  to  get  well  again  and  to  re- 
pair the  car  that  broke  down  at  Lokeren.1 

Somebody  else  is  to  look  after  Mr. this  after- 
noon. 

I  have  been  given  leave  rather  reluctantly  to  sit 
up  with  him  at  night. 

The  Commandant  is  going  to  take  me  in  Tom's 
Daimler  (Car  i)  to  the  British  lines  to  look  for  a 
base  for  that  temporary  hospital  which  is  still  run- 
ning in  his  head  like  a  splendid  dream.  I  do  not 
see  how,  with  the  Germans  at  Melle,  only  four  and 
a  half  miles  off,  any  sort  of  hospital  is  to  be  estab- 
lished on  this  side  of  Ghent. 

Tom,  the  chauffeur,  does  not  look  with  favour 
on  the  expedition.  I  have  had  to  point  out  to  him 
that  a  Field  Ambulance  is  not,  as  he  would  say, 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  that  there  is  a  certain 

1  The  fate  of  "  Mr.  Lambert "  and  the  scouting-car  was  one 
of  those  things  that  ought  never  to  have  happened.  It  turned 
out  that  the  car  was  not  the  property  of  his  paper,  but  his 
own  car,  hired  and  maintained  by  him  at  great  expense;  that 
this  brave  and  devoted  young  American  had  joined  our  Corps 
before  it  left  England  and  gone  out  to  the  front  to  wait  for  us. 
And  he  was  kept  waiting  long  after  we  got  there. 

But  if  he  didn't  see  as  much  service  at  Ghent  as  he  under- 
took to  see  (though  he  did  some  fine  things  on  his  own  even 
there),  it  was  made  up  to  him  in  Flanders  afterwards,  when, 
with  the  Commandant  and  other  members  of  the  Corps,  he 
distinguished  himself  by  his  gallantry  at  Furnes  and  in  the 
Battle  of  Dixmude. 

(For  an  account  of  his  wife's  services  see  Postscript.) 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       '2OI 

propriety  binding  even  on  a  chauffeur  and  a  limit 
to  the  freedom  of  the  speech  you  may  apply  to  your 
Commandant.  This  afternoon  Tom  has  exceeded 
all  the  limits.  The  worst  of  Tom  is  that  while  his 
tongue  rages  on  the  confines  of  revolt,  he  himself 
is  punctilious  to  excess  on  the  point  of  orders. 
Either  he  has  orders  or  he  hasn't  them.  If  he  has 
them  he  obeys  them  with  a  punctuality  that  puts 
everybody  else  in  the  wrong.  If  he  hasn't  them, 
an  earthquake  wouldn't  make  him  move.  Such  is 
his  devotion  to  orders  that  he  will  insist  on  any 
one  order  holding  good  for  an  unlimited  time  after 
it  has  been  given. 

So  now,  in  defence  of  his  manners,  he  urges 
that  what  with  orders  and  counter-orders,  the  provo- 
cation is  more  than  flesh  and  blood  can  stand.  Tom 
himself  is  protest  clothed  in  flesh  and  blood. 

To-day  at  two  o'clock  Tom's  orders  are  that  his 
car  is  to  be  ready  at  two-thirty.  My  orders  are  to 
be  ready  in  twenty  minutes.  I  am  ready  in  twenty 
minutes.  The  Commandant  thinks  that  he  has 
transacted  all  his  business  and  is  ready  in  twenty 
minutes  too.  Tom  and  his  car  are  nowhere  to  be 
seen.  I  go  to  look  for  Tom.  Tom  is  reported  as 
being  last  seen  riding  on  a  motor-lorry  towards  the 
British  lines  in  the  company  of  a  detachment  of 
British  infantry. 


2O2       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

The  chauffeur  Tom  is  considered  to  have  dis- 
graced himself  everlastingly. 

Punctually  at  two-thirty  he  appears  with  his  car 
at  the  door  of  the  "  Flandria." 

The  Commandant  is  nowhere  to  be  seen.  He 
has  gone  to  look  for  Tom. 

I  reprove  Tom  for  the  sin  of  unpunctuality,  and 
he  has  me. 

His  orders  were  to  be  ready  at  two-thirty  and 
he  is  ready  at  two-thirty.  And  it  is  nobody's  bus- 
iness what  he  did  with  himself  ten  minutes  before. 
He  wants  to  know  where  the  Commandant  is. 

I  go  to  look  for  the  Commandant. 

The  Commandant  is  reported  to  have  been  last 
seen  going  through  the  Hospital  on  his  way  to  the 
garage.  I  go  round  to  the  garage  through  the  Hos- 
pital; and  the  Commandant  goes  out  of  the  garage 
by  the  street.  He  was  last  seen  in  the  garage. 

He  appears  suddenly  from  some  quarter  where 
you  wouldn't  expect  him  in  the  least.  He  reproves 
Tom. 

Tom  with  considerable  violence  declares  his 
righteousness.  He  has  gathered  to  himself  a  friend, 
a  Belgian  Red  Cross  man,  whose  language  he  does 
not  understand.  But  they  exchange  winks  that  sur- 
pass all  language. 

Then  the  Commandant  remembers  that  he  has 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       203 

several  cables  to  send  off.  He  is  seen  disappear- 
ing in  the  direction  of  the  Post  and  Telegraph 
Office. 

Tom  swallows  words  that  would  be  curses  if  I 
were  not  there. 

I  keep  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  doors  of  the  Post 
Office.  Ages  pass. 

I  go  to  the  Post  Office  to  look  for  the  Command- 
ant. He  is  not  in  the  Telegraph  Office.  He  is  not 
in  the  Post  Office.  Tom  keeps  his  eyes  on  the  doors 
of  both. 

More  ages  pass.  Finally,  the  Commandant  ap- 
pears from  inside  the  Hospital,  which  he  has  not 
been  seen  to  enter. 

The  chauffeur  Tom  dismounts  and  draws  from 
his  car's  mysterious  being  sounds  that  express  the 
savage  fury  of  his  resentment. 

You  would  think  we  were  off  now.  But  we  only 
get  as  far  as  a  street  somewhere  near  the  Hotel  de 
la  Poste.  Here  we  wait  for  apparently  no  reason 
in  such  tension  that  you  can  hear  the  ages  pass. 

The  Commandant  disappears. 

Tom  says  something  about  there  being  no  room 
for  the  wounded  at  this  rate. 

It  seems  his  orders  are  to  go  first  to  the  British 
lines  at  a  place  whose  name  I  forget,  and  then  on 
to  Melle. 


2O4       A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

I  remember  Tom's  views  on  the  subject  of  field- 
women.  And  suddenly  I  seem  to  understand  them. 
Tom  is  very  like  Lord  Kitchener.  He  knows  noth- 
ing about  the  aims  and  wants  of  modern  woman- 
hood and  he  cares  less.  The  modern  woman  does 
not  ask  to  be  protected,  does  not  want  to  be  pro- 
tected, and  Tom,  like  Lord  Kitchener,  will  go  on 
protecting.  You  cannot  elevate  men  like  Lord 
Kitchener  and  Tom  above  the  primitive  plane  of 
chivalry.  Tom  in  the  danger  zone  with  a  woman 
by  his  side  feels  about  as  peaceful  and  comfortable 
as  a  woman  in  the  danger  zone  with  a  two-year-old 
baby  in  her  lap.  A  bomb  in  his  bedroom  is  one 
thing  and  a  band  of  drunken  Uhlans  making  for  his 
women  is  another.  Tom's  nerves  are  racked  with 
problems:  How  the  dickens  is  he  to  steer  his  car 
and  protect  his  women  at  the  same  time?  And  if 
it  comes  to  a  toss-up  between  his  women  and  his 
wounded?  You've  got  to  stow  the  silly  things 
somewhere,  and  every  one  of  them  takes  up  the 
place  of  a  wounded  mai 

I  get  out  of  the  car  and  tell  the  Commandant 
that  I  would  rather  not  go  than  take  up  the  place 
of  a  wounded  man. 

He  orders  me  back  to  the  car  again.  Tom  seems 
inclined  to  regard  me  as  a  woman  who  has  done  her 
best. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       2O5 

We  go  on  a  little  way  and  stop  again.  And  there 
springs  out  of  the  pavement  a  curious  figure  that 
I  have  seen  somewhere  before  in  Ghent,  I  cannot 
remember  when  or  where.  The  figure  wears  a 
check  suit  of  extreme  horsyness  and  carries  a  kodak 
in  its  hand.  It  is  excited. 

There  is  something  about  it  that  reminds  me  now 
of  the  eager  little  Englishman  at  Melle.  These 
figures  spring  up  everywhere  in  the  track  of  a  field 
ambulance. 

When  Tom  sees  it  he  groans  in  despair. 

The  Commandant  gets  out  and  appears  to  be 
offering  it  the  hospitality  of  the  car.  I  am  intro- 
duced. 

To  my  horror  the  figure  skips  round  in  front  of 
the  car,  levels  its  kodak  at  my  head  and  implores  me 
to  sit  still 

I  am  very  rude.  I  tell  it  sternly  to  take  that 
beastly  thing  away  and  go  away  itself. 

It  goes,  rather  startled. 

And  we  get  off,  somehow,  without  it,  and  arrive 
at  the  end  of  the  street. 

Here  Tom  has  orders  to  stop  at  the  first  hat-shop 
he  comes  to. 

The  Commandant  has  lost  his  hat  at  Melle  (he 
has  been  wearing  little  Janet's  Arctic  cap,  to  the  de- 
light of  everybody).  He  has  just  remembered  that 


2O6      A   JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

he  wants  a  hat  and  he  thinks  that  he  will  get  it 
now. 

At  this  point  I  break  down.  I  hear  myself  say 
"  Damn  "  five  times,  softly  but  distinctly.  (This 
after  reproving  Tom  for  unfettered  speech  and  po- 
tential insubordination.) 

Tom  stops  at  a  hat-shop.  The  Commandant  to 
his  doom  enters,  and  presently  returns  wearing  a 
soft  felt  hat  of  a  vivid  green.  He  asks  me  what 
I  think  of  it. 

I  tell  him  all  I  think  of  it,  and  he  says  that  if  I 
feel  like  that  about  it  he'll  go  in  again  and  get  an- 
other one. 

I  forget  what  I  said  then  except  that  I  wanted  to 
get  on  to  Melle.  That  Melle  was  the  place  of  all 
places  where  I  most  wished  to  be. 

Then,  lest  he  might  feel  unhappy  in  his  green 
hat,  I  said  that  if  he  would  leave  it  out  all  night  in 
the  rain  and  then  sit  on  it  no  doubt  time  and 
weather  and  God  would  do  something  for  it. 

This  time  we  were  off,  and  when  I  realized  it  I 
said  "Hurray!"1 

Tom  had  not  said  anything  for  some  considerable 
time. 

We  found  the  British  lines  in  a  little  village  just 

*I  record  these  details  (March  nth,  1915)  because  the 
Commandant  accused  me  subsequently  of  a  total  lack  of  "  bal- 
ance" upon  this  occasion. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       2O7 

outside  of  Ghent.  No  place  there  for  a  base  hos- 
pital. 

We  hung  about  here  for  twenty  minutes,  and  the 
women  and  children  came  out  to  stare  at  us  with 
innocent,  pathetic  faces. 

Somebody  had  stowed  away  one  of  the  trophies 
—  the  spiked  German  helmet  —  in  the  ambulance 
car,  and  the  chauffeur  Tom  stuck  it  on  a  stick  and 
held  it  up  before  the  British  lines.  It  was  greeted 
with  cheers  and  a  great  shout  of  laughter  from  the 
troops ;  and  the  villagers  came  running  out  of  their 
houses  to  look ;  they  uttered  little  sharp  and  guttural 
cries  of  satisfaction.  The  whole  thing  was  a  bit 
savage  and  barbaric  and  horribly  impressive. 

Finally  we  left  the  British  lines  and  set  out  to- 
wards Melle  by  a  cross-road. 

We  got  through  all  right.  A  thousand  accidents 
may  delay  his  going,  but  once  off,  no  barriers  exist 
for  the  Commandant.  Seated  in  the  front  of  the 
car,  utterly  unperturbed  by  the  chauffeur  Tom's 
sarcastic  comments  on  men,  things  and  women, 
wrapped  (apparently)  in  a  beautiful  dream,  he 
looks  straight  ahead  with  eyes  whose  vagueness 
veils  a  deadly  simplicity  of  purpose.  I  marvel  at 
the  transfiguration  of  the  Commandant.  Before 
the  War  he  was  a  fairly  complex  personality.  Now 
he  has  ceased  to  exist  as  a  separate  individual.  He 


2O8       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

is  merged,  vaguely  and  vastly,  in  his  adventure. 
He  is  the  Motor  Ambulance  Field  Corps;  he  is  the 
ambulance  car;  he  is  the  electric  spark  and  the  con- 
tinuous explosion  that  drives  the  thing  along.  It  is 
useless  to  talk  to  him  about  anything  that  happened 
before  the  War  or  about  anything  that  exists  out- 
side it.  He  would  not  admit  that  anything  did  ex- 
ist outside  it.  He  is  capable  of  forgetting  the  day 
of  the  week  and  the  precise  number  of  female  units 
in  his  company  and  the  amount  standing  to  his  credit 
at  his  banker's,  but,  once  off,  he  is  cock-sure  of  the 
shortest  cut  to  the  firing-line  within  a  radius  of 
fifty  kilometres. 

Some  of  us  who  have  never  seen  a  human  phe- 
nomenon of  this  sort  are  ready  to  deny  him  an 
identity.  They  complain  of  his  inveterate  and  de- 
plorable lack  of  any  sense  of  detail.  This  is  ab- 
surd. You  might  as  well  insist  on  a  faithful  rep- 
resentation of  the  household  furniture  of  the  burgo- 
master of  Zoetenaeg,  which  is  the  smallest  village  in 
Belgium,  in  drawing  the  map  of  Europe  to  scale. 
At  the  critical  moment  this  more  than  continental 
vastness  gathers  to  a  wedge-like  determination  that 
goes  home.  He  means  to  get  through. 

We  ran  into  Melle  about  an  hour  before  sunset. 

There  had  been  a  great  slaughter  of  Germans  on 
the  field  outside  the  village  where  the  Germans  were 


A  JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

still  firing  when  the  Corps  left  it.  We  found  two 
of  our  cars  drawn  up  by  the  side  of  the  village  street, 
close  under  the  houses.  The  Chaplain,  Ursula 
Dearmer  and  Mrs.  Lambert  were  waiting  in  one  of 
them,  the  new  Daimler,  with  the  chauffeur  New- 
lands.  Dr.  Wilson  was  in  Bert's  car  with  three 
wounded  Germans.  He  was  sitting  in  front  with 
one  of  them  beside  him.  They  say  that  the  enemy's 
wounded  sometimes  fire  on  our  surgeons  and  Red 
Cross  men,  and  Dr.  Wilson  had  a  revolver  about 
him  when  he  went  on  the  battle-field  yesterday. 
He  said  he  wasn't  taking  any  risks.  The  man  he 
had  got  beside  him  to-day  was  only  wounded  in  the 
foot,  and  had  his  hands  entirely  free  to  do  what  he 
liked  with.  He  looked  rather  a  low  type,  and  at 
the  first  sight  of  him  I  thought  I  shouldn't  have 
cared  to  be  alone  with  him  anywhere  on  a  dark 
night. 

And  then  I  saw  the  look  on  his  face.  He  was 
purely  pathetic.  He  didn't  look  at  you.  He 
stared  in  front  of  him  down  the  road  towards 
Ghent,  in  a  dull,  helpless  misery.  These  unhappy 
German  Tommies  are  afraid  of  us.  They  are  told 
that  we  shall  treat  them  badly,  and  some  of  them 
believe  it.  I  wanted  Dr.  Wilson  to  let  me  get  up 
and  go  with  the  poor  fellow,  but  he  wouldn't.  He 
was  sorry  for  him  and  very  gentle.  He  is  always 


2IO       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

sorry  for  people  and  very  gentle.  So  I  knew  that 
the  German  would  be  all  right  with  him.  But  I 
should  have  liked  to  have  gone. 

We  found  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  with  M. 

on  the  other  side  of  the  street,  left  behind  by  Dr. 
Wilson.  They  have  been  working  all  day  yester- 
day and  half  the  night  and  all  this  morning  and 
afternoon  on  that  hideous  turnip-field.  They  have 
seen  things  and  combinations  of  things  that  no  fore- 
warning imagination  could  have  devised.  Last 
night  the  car  was  fired  on  where  it  stood  waiting  for 
them  in  the  village,  and  they  had  to  race  back  to  it 
under  a  shower  of  bullets. 

They  were  as  fresh  as  paint  and  very  cheerful. 
Mrs.  Torrence  was  wearing  a  large  silver  order  on 
a  broad  blue  ribbon  pinned  to  her  khaki  overcoat. 
It  was  given  to  her  to-day  as  the  reward  of  valour 
by  the  Belgian  General  in-  command  here.  Some- 
body took  it  from  the  breast  of  a  Prussian  officer. 
She  had  covered  it  up  with  her  khaki  scarf  so  that 
she  might  not  seem  to  swank. 

Little  Janet  was  with  her.  She  always  is  with 
her.  She  looked  younger  than  ever,  more  im- 
passive than  ever,  more  adorable  than  ever.  I  have 
got  used  to  Mrs.  Torrence  and  to  Ursula  Dearmer; 
but  I  cannot  get  used  to  Janet  It  always  seems 
appalling  to  me  that  she  should  be  here,  strolling 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       211 

about  the  seat  of  War  with  her  hands  in  her  pockets, 
as  if  a  battle  were  a  cricket-match  at  which  you 
looked  on  between  your  innings.  And  yet  there 
isn't  a  man  in  the  Corps  who  does  his  work  better, 
and  with  more  courage  and  endurance,  than  this 
eighteen-year-old  child. 

They  told  us  that  there  were  no  French  or  Bel- 
gian wounded  left,  but  that  two  wounded  Germans 
were  still  lying  over  there  among  the  turnips.  They 
were  waiting  for  our  car  to  come  out  and  take  these 
men  up.  The  car  was  now  drawn  up  close  under 
some  building  that  looked  like  a  town  hall,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street.  We  were  in  the  middle 
of  the  village.  The  village  itself  was  the  extreme 
fringe  of  the  danger  zone.  Where  the  houses 
ended,  a  stretch  of  white  road  ran  up  for  about  [  ?] 
a  hundred  yards  to  the  turnip-field.  Standing  in 
the  village  street,  we  could  see  the  turnip-field,  but 
not  all  of  it.  The  road  goes  straight  up  to  the  edge 
of  it  and  turns  there  with  a  sweep  to  the  left  and 
runs  alongside  for  about  a  mile  and  a  half. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  turnip-field  were  the 
German  lines.  The  first  that  had  raked  the  village 
street  aso  raked  the  fields  and  the  mile  and  a  half  of 
road  alongside. 

It  was  along  that  road  that  the  car  would  have 
to  go. 


212       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

M. told  our  Ambulance  that  it  might  as  well 

go  back.  There  were  no  more  wounded.  Only 
two  Germans  lying  in  a  turnip-field.  The  three  of 
us  —  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  and  I  —  tried  to 

bring  pressure  to  bear  on  M. .  We  meant  to 

go  and  get  those  Germans. 

But  M.  was  impervious  to  pressure.  He 

refused  either  to  go  with  the  car  himself  or  to  let 
us  go.  He  said  we  were  too  late  and  it  was  too 
far  and  there  wouldn't  be  light  enough.  He  said 
that  for  two  Belgians,  or  two  French,  or  two 
British,  it  would  be  worth  while  taking  risks.  But 
for  two  Germans  under  German  fire  it  wasn't  good 
enough. 

But  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  and  I  didn't  agree 
with  him.  Wounded  were  wounded.  We  said  we 
were  going  if  he  wasn't. 

Then  the  chauffeur  Tom  joined  in.  He  refused 
to  offer  his  car  as  a  target  for  the  enemy.1  Our 
firm  Belgian  was  equally  determined.  The  Com- 
mandant, as  if  roused  from  his  beautiful  dream  to 
a  sudden  realization  of  the  horrors  of  war,  abso- 
lutely forbade  the  expedition. 

It  took  place  all  the  same. 

1  This  is  no  reflection  on  Tom's  courage.  His  chief  objec- 
tion was  to  driving  three  women  so  near  the  German  lines. 
The  same  consideration  probably  weighed  with  the  Com- 
mandant and  M . 


A   JOUR'NAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       §13 

Tom's  car,  planted  there  on  our  side  of  the  street, 
hugging  the  wall,  with  its  hood  over  its  eyes,  pre- 
served its  attitude  of  obstinate  immobility.  New- 
lands'  car,  hugging  the  wall  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street,  stood  discreetly  apart  from  the  discus- 
sion. But  a  Belgian  military  ambulance  car  ran 
up,  smaller  and  more  alert  than  ours.  And  a  Bel- 
gian Army  Medical  Officer  strolled  up  to  see  what 
was  happening. 

We  three  advanced  on  that  Army  Medical  Officer, 
Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  on  his  left  and  I  on  his 
right. 

I  shall  always  be  grateful  to  that  righteous  man. 
He  gave  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  leave  to  go,  and 
he  gave  me  leave  to  go  with  them;  he  gave  us  the 
military  ambulance  to  go  in  and  a  Belgian  soldier 
with  a  rifle  to  protect  us.  And  he  didn't  waste  a 
second  over  it.  He  just  looked  at  us,  and  smiled, 
and  let  us  go. 

Mrs.  Torrence  got  on  to  the  ambulance  beside 
the  driver,  Janet  jumped  on  to  one  step  and  I  on  to 
the  other,  while  the  Commandant  came  up,  trying  to 
look  stern,  and  told  me  to  get  down. 

I  hung  on  all  the  tighter. 

And  then 

What  happened  then  was  so  ignominious,  so  sick- 
ening, that,  if  I  were  not  sworn  to  the  utmost  pos- 


214       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

sible  realism  in  this  record,  I  should  suppress  it  in 
the  interests  of  human  dignity. 

Mrs.  Torrence,  having  the  advantage  of  me  in 
weight,  height,  muscle  and  position,  got  up  and  tried 
to  push  me  off  the  step.  As  she  did  this  she  said  : 
"  You  can't  come.  You'll  take  up  the  place  of  a 
wounded  man." 

And  I  found  myself  standing  in  the  village  street, 
while  the  car  rushed  out  of  it,  with  Janet  clinging 
on  to  the  hood,  like  a  little  sailor  to  his  shrouds. 
She  was  on  the  side  next  the  German  guns. 

It  was  the  most  revolting  thing  that  had  happened 
to  me  yet,  in  a  life  rilled  with  incidents  that  I  have 
no  desire  to  repeat.  And  it  made  me  turn  on  the 
Commandant  in  a  way  that  I  do  not  like  to  think  of. 
I  believe  I  asked  him  how  he  could  bear  to  let  that 
kid  go  into  the  German  lines,  which  was  exactly 
what  the  poor  man  hadn't  done.1 

Then  we  waited,  Mrs.  Lambert  and  I  in  Tom's 
car;  and  the  Commandant  in  the  car  with  Ursula 
Dearmer  and  the  Chaplain  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street. 

We  were  dreadfully  silent  now.  We  stared  at 
objects  that  had  no  earthly  interest  for  us  as  if  our 

1  The  whole  thing  was  a  piece  of  rank  insubordination.  The 
Commandant  was  entirely  right  to  forbid  the  expedition,  and 
we  were  entirely  wrong  in  disobeying  him.  But  it  was  one 
of  those  wrong  things  that  I  would  do  again  to-morrow. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

lives  depended  on  mastering  their  detail.  We  were 
thus  aware  of  a  beautiful  little  Belgian  house  stand- 
ing back  from  the  village  street  down  a  short  turn- 
ing, a  cream-coloured  house  with  green  shutters  and 
a  roof  of  rose-red  tiles,  and  a  very  small  poplar 
tree  mounting  guard  beside  it.  This  house  and  its 
tree  were  vivid  and  very  still.  They  stood  back  in 
an  atmosphere  of  their  own,  an  atmosphere  of  per- 
fect but  utterly  unreal  peace.  And  as  long  as  our 
memories  endure,  that  house  which  we  never  saw 
before,  and  shall  probably  never  see  again,  is  bound 
up  with  the  fate  of  Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  Mc- 
Neil. 

We  thought  we  should  have  an  hour  to  wait  be- 
fore they  came  back,  if  they  ever  did  come.  We 
waited  for  them  during  a  whole  dreadful  lifetime. 

In  something  less  than  half  an  hour  the  military 
ambulance  came  swinging  round  the  turn  of  the 
road,  with  Mrs.  Torrence  and  the  Kid,  and  the  two 
German  wounded  with  them  on  the  stretchers. 

Those  Germans  never  thought  that  they  were  go- 
ing to  be  saved.  They  couldn't  get  over  it  —  that 
two  Englishwomen  should  have  gone  through  their 
fire,  for  them !  As  they  were  being  carried  through 
the  fire  they  said :  "  We  shall  never  forget  what 
you've  done  for  us.  God  will  bless  you  for  it." 


2l6       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

Mrs.  Torrence  asked  them,  "  What  will  you  do 
for  us  if  we  are  taken  prisoner?  " 

And  they  said :  "  We  will  do  all  we  can  to  save 
you." 

Antwerp  is  said  to  have  fallen. 

Antwerp  is  said  to  be  holding  its  own  well.1 

All  evening  the  watching  Taube  has  been  hanging 
over  Ghent. 

Mrs.  Torrence  and  Janet  have  gone  back  with  the 
ambulance  to  Melle. 

[Night.] 

SAT  up  all  night  with  Mr. . 

There  is  one  night  nurse  for  all  the  wards  on 
this  floor,  and  she  has  a  serious  case  to  watch  in 
another  room.  But  I  can  call  her  if  I  want  help. 
And  there  is  the  chemist  who  sleeps  in  the  room 
next  door,  who  will  come  if  I  go  in  and  wake  him 
up.  And  there  are  our  own  four  doctors  upstairs. 
And  the  infirmiers.  It  ought  to  be  all  right. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  the  most  terrible  night 
I  have  ever  spent  in  my  life;  and  I  have  lived 
through  a  good  many  terrible  nights  in  sick-rooms. 
But  no  amount  of  amateur  nursing  can  take  the 

1  Antwerp  had  surrendered  on  Friday,  the  9th. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       217 

place  of  training  or  of  the  self-confidence  of  know- 
ing you  are  trained.  And  even  if  you  are  trained, 
no  amount  of  medical  nursing  will  prepare  you  for 
a  bad  surgical  case.  To  begin  with,  I  had  never 
nursed  a  patient  so  tall  and  heavy  that  I  couldn't 
lift  him  by  sheer  strength  and  a  sort  of  amateur 
knack. 

And  though  in  theory  it  was  reassuring  to  know 
that  you  could  call  the  night  nurse  and  the  chemist 
and  the  four  doctors  and  the  infirmiers,  in  practice 
it  didn't  work  out  quite  so  easily  as  it  sounded. 
When  the  night  nurse  came  she  couldn't  lift  any 
more  than  I  could ;  and  she  had  a  greater  command 
of  discouraging  criticism  than  of  useful,  practical 
suggestion.  And  the  chemist  knew  no  more  about 
lifting  than  the  night  nurse.  (Luckily  none  of  us 
pretended  for  an  instant  that  we  knew!)  When  I 
had  called  up  two  of  our  hard- worked  surgeons 
each  once  out  of  his  bed,  I  had  some  scruples  about 
waking  them  again.  And  it  took  four  Belgian  in- 
firmiers to  do  in  five  minutes  what  one  surgeon 
could  do  in  as  many  seconds.  And  when  the 
chemist  went  to  look  for  the  infirmiers  he  was  gone 
for  ages  —  he  must  have  had  to  round  them  up 
from  every  floor  in  the  Hospital.  Whenever  any 
of  them  went  to  look  for  anything,  it  took  them 
ages.  It  was  as  if  for  every  article  needed  in  the 


2l8       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

wards  of  that  Hospital  there  was  a  separate  and  in- 
accessible central  depot.1 

At  one  moment  a  small  pillow  had  to  be  placed 
in  the  hollow  of  my  patient's  back  if  he  was  to  be 
kept  in  that  position  on  which  I  had  been  told  his 
life  depended.  When  I  sent  the  night  nurse  to  look 
for  something  that  would  serve,  she  was  gone  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  in  which  I  realized  that  my 
case  was  not  the  only  case  in  the  Hospital.  For 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  I  had  to  kneel  by  his  bed  with 
my  two  arms  thrust  together  under  the  hollow  of  his 
back,  supporting  it.  I  had  nothing  at  hand  that  was 
small  enough  or  firm  enough  but  my  arms. 

That  night  I  would  have  given  everything  I  pos- 
sess, and  everything  I  have  ever  done,  to  have  been 
a  trained  nurse. 

To  make  matters  worse,  I  had  an  atrocious  cough, 
acquired  at  the  Hotel  de  la  Poste.  The  chemist 
had  made  up  some  medicine  for  it,  but  the  poor  busy 
dispensary  clerk  had  forgotten  to  send  it  to  my 
room.  I  had  to  stop  it  by  an  expenditure  of  will 
when  I  wanted  every  atom  of  will  to  keep  my  patient 
quiet  and  send  him  to  sleep,  if  possible,  without  his 
morphia  piqures.  He  is  only  to  have  one  if  he  is 
restless  or  in  pain. 

And  to-night  he  wanted  more  than  ever  to  talk 

XA11  the  same  it  was  splendidly  equipped  and  managed. 


.        A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

when  he  woke.  And  his  conversation  in  the  night 
is  even  more  lacerating  than  his  conversation  in  the 
day.  For  all  the  time,  often  in  pain,  always  in  ex- 
treme discomfort,  he  is  thinking  of  other  people. 

First  of  all  he  asked  me  if  I  had  any  books,  and 
I  thought  that  he  wanted  me  to  read  to  him.  I  told 
him  I  was  afraid  he  mustn't  be  read  to,  he  must  go 
to  sleep.  And  he  said :  "  I  mean  for  you  to  read 
yourself  —  to  pass  the  time." 

He  is  afraid  that  I  shall  be  bored  by  sitting  up 
with  him,  that  I  shall  tire  myself,  that  I  shall  make 
my  cough  worse.  He  asks  me  if  I  think  he  will  ever 
be  well  enough  to  play  games.  That  is  what  he 
has  always  wanted  to  do  most. 

And  then  he  begins  to  tell  me  about  his  mother. 
He  tells  me  things  that  I  have  no  right  to  put 
down  here. 

There  is  nothing  that  I  can  do  for  him  but  to 
will.  And  I  will  hard,  or  I  pray  —  I  don't  know 
which  it  is;  your  acutest  willing  and  your  intensest 
prayer  are  indistinguishable.  And  it  seems  to  work. 
I  will  —  or  I  pray  —  that  he  shall  lie  still  without 
morphia,  and  that  he  shall  have  no  pain.  And  he 
lies  still,  without  pain.  I  will  —  or  I  pray  —  that 
he  shall  sleep  without  morphia.  And  he  sleeps  (I 
think  that  in  spite  of  his  extreme  discomfort,  he 
must  have  slept  the  best  part  of  the  night).  And 


22O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

i 

because  it  seems  to  work,  I  will  —  or  I  pray  —  that 
he  shall  get  well. 

There  are  many  things  that  obstruct  this  process 
as  fast  as  it  is  begun:  your  sensation  of  sight  and 
touch ;  the  swarms  and  streams  of  images  that  your 
brain  throws  out;  and  the  crushing  obsession  of 
your  fear.  This  last  is  like  a  dead  weight  that  you 
hold  off  you  with  your  arms  stretched  out.  Your 
arms  sink  and  drop  under  it  perpetually  and  have  to 
be  raised  again.  At  last  the  weight  goes.  And  the 
sensations  go,  and  the  swarms  and  streams  of 
images  go,  and  there  is  nothing  before  you  and 
around  you  but  a  clear  blank  darkness  where  your 
will  vibrates. 

Only  one  avenue  of  sense  is  left  open.  You  are 
lost  to  the  very  memories  of  touch  and  sight,  but 
you  are  intensely  conscious  of  every  sound  from 
the  bed,  every  movement  of  the  sleeper.  And  while 
one  half  of  you  only  lives  in  that  pure  and  effortless 
vibration,  the  other  half  is  aware  of  the  least  change 
in  the  rhythm  of  his  breathing. 

It  is  by  this  rhythm  that  I  can  tell  whether  he 
is  asleep  or  awake.  This  rhythm  of  his  breathing, 
and  the  rhythm  of  his  sleeping  and  his  waking  meas- 
ure out  the  night  for  me.  It  goes  like  one  hour. 

And  yet  I  have  spent  months  of  nights  watching 
in  this  room.  Its  blond  walls  are  as  familiar  to  me 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       221 

as  the  walls  of  rooms  where  I  have  lived  a  long 
time;  I  know  with  a  profound  and  intimate  knowl- 
edge every  crinkle  in  the  red  shade  of  the  electric 
bulb  that  hangs  on  the  inner  wall  between  the  two 
beds,  the  shape  and  position  of  every  object  on  the 
night  table  in  the  little  white-tiled  dressing-room; 
I  know  every  trick  of  the  inner  and  outer  doors 
leading  to  the  corridor,  and  the  long  grey  lane  of 
the  corridor,  and  the  room  that  I  must  go  through 
to  find  ice,  and  the  face  of  the  little  ward-maid  who 
sleeps  there,  who  wants  to  get  up  and  break  the  ice 
for  me  every  time.  I  have  known  the  little  ward- 
maid  all  my  life;  I  have  known  the  night  nurse  all 
my  life,  with  her  white  face  and  sharp  black  eyes, 
and  all  my  life  I  have  not  cared  for  her.  All  my 
life  I  have  known  and  cared  only  for  the  wounded 
man  on  the  bed. 

I  have  known  every  sound  of  his  voice  and  every 
line  of  his  face  and  hands  (the  face  and  hands  that 
he  asks  me  to  wash,  over  and  over  again,  if  I  don't 
mind),  and  the  strong  springing  of  his  dark  hair 
from  his  forehead  and  every  little  feathery  tuft  of 
beard  on  his  chin.  And  I  have  known  no  other 
measure  of  time  than  the  rhythm  of  his  breathing, 
no  mark  or  sign  of  time  than  the  black  crescent  of 
his  eyelashes  when  the  lids  are  closed,  and  the  curl- 
ing blue  of  his  eyes  when  they  open.  His  eyes  al- 


222       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

ways  smile  as  they  open,  as  if  he  apologized  for  wak- 
ing when  he  knows  that  I  want  him  to  sleep.  And 
I  have  known  these  things  so  long  that  each  one  of 
them  is  already  like  a  separate  wound  in  my 
memory.1  He  sums  up  for  me  all  the  heroism  and 
the  agony  and  waste  of  the  defence  of  Antwerp,  all 
the  heroism  and  agony  and  waste  of  war. 

About  midnight  [?]  he  wakes  and  tells  me  he 
has  had  a  jolly  dream.  He  dreamed  that  he  was 
running  in  a  field  in  England,  running  in  a  big  race, 
that  he  led  the  race  and  won  it. 

[Sunday,  nth.'] 

ONE  bad  symptom  is  disappearing.  Towards 
dawn  it  has  almost  gone.  He  really  does  seem 
stronger. 

[5  a.m.} 

HE  has  had  no  return  of  pain  or  restlessness. 
But  he  was  to  have  a  morphia  piqure  at  five  o'clock, 
and  they  have  given  it  to  him  to  make  sure. 

1  Even  now,  when  I  am  asked  if  I  did  any  nursing  when  I 
was  in  Belgium  I  have  to  think  before  I  answer :  "  Only  for 
one  morning  and  one  night " —  it  would  still  be  much  truer  to 
say,  "  I  was  nursing  all  the  time." 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       '223 

[8  a.m.] 

THE  night  has  not  been  so  terrible,  after  all.  It 
has  gone  like  an  hour  and  I  have  left  him  sleeping. 

I  am  not  in  the  least  bit  tired ;  I  never  felt  drowsy 
once,  and  my  cough  has  nearly  gone. 

Antwerp  has  fallen. 

Taube  over  Ghent  in  the  night. 

Six  doctors  have  seen  Mr.  .  They  all  say 

he  is  ever  so  much  better.  They  even  say  he  may 
live  —  that  he  has  a  good  chance. 

Dr.  Wilson  is  taking  Mr.  Foster  to  England  this 
morning. 

Went  back  to  the  Hotel  Cecil  to  sleep  for  an  hour 
or  two.  An  enormous  oval  table-top  is  leaning  flat 
against  the  wall ;  but  by  no  possibility  can  it  be  set 
up.  Still,  the  landlord  said  he  would  find  a  table, 
and  he  has  found  one. 

Went  back  to  the  "  Flandria  "  for  lunch.  In  the 

mess-room  Janet  tells  me  that  Mr. 's  case  has 

been  taken  out  of  my  hands.  I  am  not  to  try  to 
do  any  more  nursing. 

Little  Janet  looks  as  if  she  were  trying  to  soften 
a  blow.  But  it  isn't  a  blow.  Far  from  it.  It 
is  the  end  of  an  intolerable  responsibility. 


'224       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

The  Commandant  and  the  Chaplain  started  about 
nine  or  ten  this  morning  for  Melle,  and  are  not  back 
yet. 

We  expect  that  we  may  have  to  clear  out  of  Ghent 
before  to-morrow. 

Mr.  Riley,  Mrs.  Lambert  and  Janet  have  gone  in 
the  second  car  to  Melle. 

I  waited  in  all  afternoon  on  the  chance  of  being 
taken  when  the  Commandant  comes  and  goes  out 
again. 

[445-] 

HE  is  not  back  yet.  I  am  very  anxious.  The 
Germans  may  be  in  Melle  by  now. 

One  of  the  old  officials  in  peaked  caps  has  called 
on  me  solemnly  this  afternoon.  He  is  the  most 
mysterious  of  them  all,  an  old  man  with  a  white 
moustache,  who  never  seems  to  do  anything  but 
hang  about.  He  is  certainly  not  an  infirmier.  He 
called  ostensibly  to  ask  some  question  and  remained 
to  talk.  I  think  he  thought  he  would  pump  me. 
He  began  by  asking  if  we  women  enjoyed  going  out 
with  the  Field  Ambulance ;  he  supposed  we  felt  very 
daring  and  looked  on  the  whole  thing  as  an  adven- 
ture. I  detected  some  sinister  intention,  and  replied 
that  that  was  not  exactly  the  idea ;  that  our  women 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       225 

went  out  to  help  to  save  the  lives  of  the  wounded 
soldiers,  and  that  they  had  succeeded  in  this  object 
over  and  over  again ;  and  that  I  didn't  imagine  they 
thought  of  anything  much  except  their  duty.  We 
certainly  were  not  out  for  amusement. 

Then  he  took  another  line.     He  told  me  that  the 
reason  why  our  Ambulance  is  to  be  put  under  the 
charge  of  the  British  General  here  (we  had  heard 
that  the  whole  of  the  Belgian  Army  was  shortly  to 
be  under  the  control  of  the  British,  and  the  whole 
of    the    Belgian    Red    Cross    with    it)  —  the    rea- 
son is  that  its  behaviour  in  going  into  the  firing- 
line  has  been  criticized.     And  when  I  ask  him  on 
what  grounds,  it  turns  out  that  somebody  thinks 
there  is  a  risk  of  our  Ambulance  drawing  down 
the  fire  on  the  lines  it  serves.     I  told  him  that  in 
all  the  time  I  had  been  with  the  Ambulance  it  had 
never  placed  itself  in  any  position  that  could  pos- 
sibly have  drawn  down  fire  on  the  Belgians,  and 
that  I  had  never  heard  of  any  single  instance  of 
this  danger ;  and  I  made  him  confess  that  there  was 
no  proof  or  even  rumour  of  any  single  instance 
when  it  had  occurred.     I  further  told  the  old  gen- 
tleman very  plainly  that  these  things  ought  not  to 
be  said  or  repeated,  and  that  every  man  and  woman 
in  the  English  Ambulance  would  rather  lose  their 
own  life  than  risk  that  of  one  Belgian  soldier. 


226      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM 

The  old  gentleman  was  somewhat  flattened  out 
before  he  left  me;  having  " parfaitement  compris." 

It  is  a  delicious  idea  that  Kitchener  and  Joffre 
should  be  reorganizing  the  Allied  Armies  because 
of  the  behaviour  of  our  Ambulance. 

There  are  Gordon  Highlanders  in  Ghent.1 

Went  over  to  the  Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre,  where 
Miss  Ashley-Smith  is  with  her  British  wounded. 
I  had  to  warn  her  that  the  Germans  may  come  in 
to-night.  I  had  told  the  Commandant  about  her 
yesterday,  and  arranged  with  him  that  we  should 
take  her  and  her  British  away  in  our  Ambulance  if 
we  have  to  go.  I  had  to  find  out  how  many  there 
would  be  to  take. 

The  Convent  is  a  little  way  beyond  the  Place 
on  the  boulevard.  I  knew  it  by  the  Red  Cross 
hanging  from  the  upper  windows.  Everything  is 
as  happy  and  peaceful  here  as  if  Ghent  were  not  on 
the  eve  of  an  invasion.  The  nuns  took  me  to  Miss 
Ashley-Smith  in  her  ward.  I  hardly  knew  her,  for 
she  had  changed  the  uniform  of  the  British  Field 
Hospital  2  for  the  white  linen  of  the  Belgian  Red 
Cross.  I  found  her  in  charge  of  the  ward.  Ab- 

1  My  Day-Book  ends  abruptly  here ;  and  I  have  no  note  of 
the  events  that  followed. 

2  Incorrect.    It  was,  I  believe,  the  uniform  of  the  First  Aid 
Nursing  Yeomanry  Corps. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       227 

solutely  unperturbed  by  the  news,  she  went  on  su- 
perintending the  disposal  of  a  table  of  surgical  in- 
struments. She  would  not  consent  to  come  with 
us  at  first.  But  the  nuns  persuaded  her  that  she 
would  do  no  good  by  remaining. 

I  am  to  come  again  and  tell  her  what  time  to  be 
ready  with  her  wounded,  when  we  know  whether 
we  are  going  and  when. 

Came  back  to  the  "  Flandria  "  and  finished  entries 
in  my  Day-Book. 

[Evening.] 

THE  Commandant  has  come  back  from  Melle; 
but  he  is  going  there  again  almost  directly.  He  has 
been  to  the  British  lines,  and  heard  for  certain  that 
the  Germans  will  be  in  Ghent  before  morning.  We 
have  orders  to  clear  out  before  two  in  the  morning. 
I  am  to  have  all  his  things  packed  by  midnight. 

The  British  Consul  has  left  Ghent. 

The  news  spread  through  the  "  Flandria." 

Max  has  gone  about  all  day  with  a  scared,  white 
face.  They  say  he  is  suffering  from  cold  feet. 
But  I  will  not  believe  it.  He  has  just  appeared  in 
the  mess-room  and  summoned  me  mysteriously. 
He  takes  me  along  the  corridor  to  that  room  of  his 
which  he  is  so  proud  of.  There  is  a  brand-new  uni- 


228      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

form  lying  on  the  bed,  the  uniform  of  a  French 
soldier  of  the  line.  Max  handles  it  with  love  and 
holy  adoration,  as  a  priest  handles  his  sacred  vest- 
ments. He  takes  it  in  his  arms,  he  spreads  before 
me  the  grey-blue  coat,  the  grey-blue  trousers,  and 
his  queer  eyes  are  in  their  solemnity  large  and  quiet 
as  dark  moons. 

Max  is  going  to  rejoin  his  regiment. 

It  is  sheer  nervous  excitement  that  gave  him  that 
wild,  white  face. 

Max  is  confident  that  we  shall  meet  again;  and 
I  have  a  horrid  vision  of  Max  carried  on  a  bloody 
stretcher,  a  brutally  wounded  Max. 

He  has  given  me  his  address  in  Brussels,  which 
will  not  find  him  there  for  long  enough :  if  ever. 

Jean  also  is  to  rejoin  his  regiment. 

Marie,  the  bonne,  stands  at  the  door  of  the  serv- 
ice room  and  watches  us  with  frightened  eyes.  She 
follows  me  into  the  mess-room  and  shuts  the  door. 
The  poor  thing  has  been  seized  with  panic,  and  her 
one  idea  is  to  get  away  from  Ghent.  Can  I  find  a 
place  for  her  on  one  of  our  ambulance  cars?  She 
will  squeeze  in  anywhere,  she  will  stand  outside  on 
the  step.  Will  I  take  her  back  to  England?  She 
will  do  any  sort  of  work,  no  matter  what,  and  she 
won't  ask  for  wages  if  only  I  will  take  her  there. 
I  tell  her  we  are  not  going  to  England.  We  are  go- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       22Q 

ing  to   Bruges.     We  have  to   follow   the   Belgian 
Army  wherever  it  is  sent. 

Then  will  I  take  her  to  Bruges?     She  has  a 
mother  there. 

It  is  ghastly.  I  have  to  tell  her  that  it  is  im- 
possible; that  there  will  be  no  place  for  her  in  the 
ambulance  cars,  that  they  will  be  crammed  with 
wounded,  that  we  will  have  to  stand  on  the  steps 
ourselves,  that  I  do  not  know  how  many  we  shall 
have  to  take  from  the  Convent,  or  how  many  from 
the  hospitals;  that  I  can  do  nothing  without  the 
Commandant's  orders,  and  that  the  Commandant  is 
not  here.  And  she  pleads  and  implores.  She  can- 
not believe  that  we  can  be  so  cruel,  and  I  find  my 
voice  growing  hard  and  stern  with  sheer,  wrench- 
ing pity.  At  last  I  tell  her  that  if  there  is  room 
I  will  see  what  can  be  done,  but  that  I  am  afraid 
that  there  will  not  be  room.  She  stays,  she  clings, 
trying  to  extort  through  pity  a  more  certain  prom- 
ise, and  I  have  to  tell  her  to  go.  She  goes,  looking 
at  me  with  the  dull  resentment  of  a  helpless  creature 
whom  I  have  hurt.  The  fact  that  she  has  left  me 
sick  with  pity  will  not  do  her  any  good.  Nothing 
can  do  her  any  good  but  that  place  on  the  ambulance 
which  I  have  no  power  to  give  her. 

For  Marie  is  not  the  only  one. 

I  see  all  the  servants  in  the  "  Flandria  "  coming 


230      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

to  me  before  the  night  is  over,  and  clinging  and 
pleading  for  a  place  in  the  ambulance  cars. 

And  this  is  only  the  beginning.  After  Marie 
comes  Janet  McNeil.  She,  poor  child,  has  sur- 
rendered to  the  overpowering  assault  on  her  feel- 
ings and  has  pledged  herself  to  smuggle  the  four 

young  children  of  Madame into  the  ambulance 

somehow.  I  don't  see  how  it  was  possible  for  her 
to  endure  the  agony  of  refusing  this  request.  But 
what  we  are  to  do  with  four  young  children  in  cars 
packed  with  wounded  soldiers,  through  all  the  stages 
of  the  Belgian  Army's  retreat  — ! 

The  next  problem  that  faced  me  was  the  Com- 
mandant's packing  —  how  to  get  all  the  things  he 
had  brought  with  him  into  one  small  Gladstone  bag 
and  a  sleeping-sack.  There  was  a  blue  serge  suit, 
two  sleeping-suits,  a  large  Burberry,  a  great  many 
pocket-handkerchiefs,  socks  and  stockings,  an  as- 
sortment of  neckties,  a  quantity  of  small  miscel- 
laneous objects  whose  fugitive  tendencies  he  pro- 
posed to  frustrate  by  confinement  in  a  large  tin 
biscuit-box;  there  was  the  biscuit-box  itself,  a  to- 
bacco tin,  a  packet  of  Gillette  razors,  a  pipe,  a 
leather  case  containing  some  electric  apparatus,  and 
a  fat  scarlet  volume :  Freud's  "  Psychopathology 
of  Everyday  Life."  All  these  things  he  had  pointed 
out  to  me  as  they  lay  flung  on  the  bed  or  strewn 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       23! 

about  the  room.  He  had  impressed  on  me  the  ab- 
solute necessity  of  packing  every  one  of  them,  and 
by  the  pathetic  grouping  around  the  Gladstone  bag 
of  the  biscuit-box,  the  tobacco-tin,  the  case  of  in- 
struments and  Freud,  I  gathered  that  he  believed 
that  they  would  all  enter  the  bag  placably  and  be 
contained  in  it  with  ease. 

The  night  is  still  young. 

I  pack  the  Gladstone  bag.  By  alternate  coaxing 
and  coercion  Freud  and  the  tobacco-tin  and  the 
biscuit-box  occupy  it  amicably  enough ;  but  the  case 
of  instruments  offers  an  unconquerable  resistance. 

The  night  is  not  quite  so  young  as  it  has  been, 
and  I  think  I  must  have  left  off  packing  to  run  over 
to  the  Hotel  Cecil  and  pay  my  bill ;  for  I  remember 
going  out  into  the  Place  and  seeing  a  crowd  drawn 
up  in  the  middle  of  it  before  the  "  Flandria."  An 
official  was  addressing  this  crowd,  ordering  them 
to  give  up  their  revolvers  and  any  arms  they  had 
on  them. 

The  fate  of  Ghent  depends  on  absolute  obedience 
to  this  order. 

When  I  get  back  I  find  Mrs.  Torrence  down- 
stairs in  the  hall  of  the  "  Flandria."  I  ask  her  what 
we  had  better  do  about  our  refugee  children.  She 
says  we  can  do  nothing.  There  must  be  no  refugee 
children.  How  can  there  be  in  an  ambulance 


232       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

packed  with  wounded  men?  ,When  I  tell  her  that 
the  children  will  certainly  be  there  if  somebody 
doesn't  do  something  to  stop  them,  she  goes  off  to 
do  it.  I  do  not  envy  her  her  job.  She  is  not  en- 
joying it  herself.  First  of  all  she  has  got  to  break 
it  to  Janet.  And  Janet  will  have  to  break  it  to  the 
mother. 

As  to  poor  Marie,  she  is  out  of  the  question.  / 
shall  have  to  break  it  to  Marie. 

The  night  goes  on.  I  sit  with  Mr.  for  a 

little  while.  I  have  still  to  finish  the  Command- 
ant's packing;  I  have  not  yet  begun  my  own,  and 
it  is  time  that  I  should  go  round  to  the  Convent  to 
tell  Miss  Ashley-Smith  to  be  ready  with  her  British 
before  two  o'clock. 

I  sit  with  him  for  what  seems  a  very  long  time. 
It  is  appalling  to  me  that  the  time  should  seem  long. 
For  it  is  really  such  a  little  while,  and  when  it  is 
over  there  will  be  nothing  more  that  I  shall  ever 
do  for  him.  This  thought  is  not  prominent  and 
vivid ;  it  is  barely  discernible ;  but  it  is  there,  a  dull 
background  of  pain  under  my  anxiety  for  the  safety 
of  the  English  over  there  in  the  Couvent  de  Saint 
Pierre.  It  is  more  than  time  that  I  should  go  and 
tell  them  to  be  ready. 

He  holds  out  his  hands  to  be  sponged  "  if  I  don't 
mind."  I  sponge  them  over  and  over  again  with 


A    JOURNAL    OF   IMPRESSIONS    IN    BELGIUM       233 

iced  water  and  eau  de  Cologne,  gently  and  very 
slowly.  I  am  afraid  lest  he  should  be  aware  that 
there  is  any  hurry.  The  time  goes  on,  and  my 
anxiety  becomes  acuter  every  minute,  till  with  each 
slow,  lingering  turn  of  my  hand  I  think,  "  If  I  don't 
go  soon  it  will  be  too  late." 

I  hear  that  the  children  will  be  all  right.  Some- 
body has  had  a  crise  de  nerfs,  and  Janet  was  the 
victim. 

It  is  past  midnight,  and  very  dark.  The  Place 
and  the  boulevards  are  deserted.  I  cannot  see  the 
Red  Cross  flag  hanging  from  the  window  of  the 
Convent.  The  boulevards  look  all  the  same  in  the 
blackness,  and  I  turn  up  the  one  to  the  left.  I  run 
on  and  on  very  fast,  but  I  cannot  see  the  white  flag 
with  the  red  cross  anywhere;  I  run  back,  thinking 
I  must  have  passed  it,  turn  and  go  on  again. 

There  is  nobody  in  sight.  No  sound  anywhere 
but  the  sound  of  my  own  feet  running  faster  and 
faster  up  the  wrong  boulevard. 

At  last  I  know  I  have  gone  too  far,  the  houses  are 
entirely  strange.  I  run  back  to  the  Place  to  get  my 
bearings,  and  start  again.  I  run  faster  than  ever. 
I  pass  a  solitary  civilian  coming  down  the  boulevard. 
The  place  is  so  empty  and  so  still  that  he  and  I  seem 
to  be  the  only  things  alive  and  awake  in  this  quar- 
ter of  the  town.  As  I  pass  he  turns  to  look  after 


234       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

me,  wondering  at  the  solitary  lady  running  so  fast 
at  this  hour  of  the  morning.  I  see  the  Red  Cross 
flag  in  the  distance,  and  I  come  to  a  door  that  looks 
like  the  door  of  the  Convent.  It  is  the  door  of  the 
Convent. 

I  ring  the  bell.  I  ring  it  many  times.  Nobody 
comes. 

I  ring  a  little  louder.  A  tired  lay  sister  puts 
her  head  out  of  an  upper  window  and  asks  me  what 
I  want.  I  tell  her.  She  is  rather  cross  and  says 
I've  come  to  the  wrong  door.  I  must  go  to  the 
second  door;  and  she  puts  her  head  in  and  shuts 
the  window  with  a  clang  that  expresses  her  just  re- 
sentment. 

I  go  to  the  second  door,  and  ring  many  times 
again.  And  another  lay  sister  puts  her  head  out  of 
an  upper  window. 

She  is  gentle  but  sleepy  and  very  slow.  She  can- 
not take  it  in  all  at  once.  She  says  they  are  all 
asleep  in  the  Convent,  and  she  does  not  like  to 
wake  them.  She  says  this  several  times,  so  that  I 
may  understand. 

I  am  exasperated. 

"Mais,  Madame  —  de  grace!  C'est  peut-etre  la 
vie  ou  la  mori!" 

The  minute  I've  said  it  it  sounds  to  me  melo- 


A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      '235 

dramatic  and  absurd.  7  am  melodramatic  and  ab- 
surd, with  my  running  feet,  and  my  small  figure  and 
earnest,  upturned  face,  standing  under  a  Convent 
wall  at  midnight,  and  talking  about  la  vie  et  la  mort. 
It  is  too  improbable.  /  am  too  improbable.  I  feel 
that  I  am  making  a  fuss  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
occasion.  And  I  am  sorry  for  frightening  the  poor 
lay  sister  all  for  nothing. 

Very  soon,  down  the  south-east  road,  the  Ger- 
mans will  be  marching  upon  Ghent. 

And  I  cannot  realize  it.  The  whole  thing  is  too 
improbable. 

But  the  lay  sister  has  understood  this  time.  She 
will  go  and  wake  the  porteress.  She  is  not  at  all 
frightened. 

I  wait  a  little  longer,  and  presently  the  porteress 
opens  the  door.  When  she  hears  my  message  she 
goes  away,  and  returns  after  a  little  while  with  one 
of  the  nuns. 

They  are  very  quiet,  very  kind,  and  absolutely 
unafraid.  They  say  that  Miss  Ashley-Smith  and 
her  British  wounded  shall  be  ready  before  [?]  two 
o'clock. 

I  go  back  to  the  "  Flandria." 

The  Commandant,  who  went  out  to  Melle  in 
Tom's  car,  has  not  come  back  yet. 


236       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

I  think  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs.  Lambert  have 
gone  to  bed.  They  are  not  taking  the  Germans  very 
seriously. 

There  is  nobody  in  the  mess-room  but  the  other 
three  chauffeurs,  Bert,  Tom  and  Newlands.  New- 
lands  has  just  come  back  from  Ostend.  They  have 
had  no  supper.  We  bustle  about  to  find  some. 

We  all  know  the  Germans  are  coming  into  Ghent. 
But  we  do  not  speak  of  it.  We  are  all  very  polite, 
almost  supernaturally  gentle,  and  very  kind  to  each 
other.  The  beautiful  manners  of  Newlands  are 
conspicuous  in  this  hour,  the  tragedy  of  which  we 
are  affecting  to  ignore.  I  behave  as  if  there  was 
nothing  so  important  in  the  world  as  cutting  bread 
for  Newlands.  Newlands  behaves  as  if  there  were 
nothing  so  important  as  fetching  a  bottle  of  forma- 
mint,  which  he  has  with  him,  to  cure  my  cough. 
(It  has  burst  out  again  worse  than  ever  after  the 
unnatural  repression  of  last  night.) 

When  the  chauffeurs  are  provided  with  supper 
I  go  into  the  Commandant's  room  and  finish  his 
packing.  The  ties,  the  pocket-handkerchiefs  and 
the  collars  are  all  safe  in  the  Gladstone  bag. 
Only  the  underclothing  and  the  suits  remain  and 
there  is  any  amount  of  room  for  them  in  the  hold- 
all. 

I  roll  up  the  blue  serge  coat,  and  the  trousers,  and 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       237 

the  waistcoat  very  smooth  and  tight,  also  the  under- 
clothes. It  seems  very  simple.  I  have  only  got  to 
put  them  in  the  hold-all  and  then  roll  it  up,  smooth 
and  tight,  too  — 

It  would  have  been  simple,  if  the  hold-all  had 
been  a  simple  hold-all  and  if  it  had  been  nothing 
more.  But  it  was  also  a  sleeping-bag  and  a  field- 
tent.  As  sleeping-bag,  it  was  provided  with  a  thick 
blanket  which  took  up  most  of  the  room  inside,  and 
a  waterproof  sheet  which  was  part  of  itself.  As 
field-tent,  it  had  large  protruding  flanges,  shaped 
like  jib-sails,  and  a  complicated  system  of  ropes. 

First  of  all  I  tucked  in  the  jib-sails  and  ropes  and 
laid  them  as  flat  as  might  be  on  the  bottom  of  the 
sleeping-bag,  with  the  blanket  on  the  top  of  them. 
Then  I  packed  the  clothes  on  the  top  of  the  blanket 
and  turned  it  over  them  to  make  all  snug ;  I  buttoned 
up  the  waterproof  sheet  over  everything,  rolled  up 
the  hold-all  and  secured  it  with  its  straps.  This 
was  only  done  by  much  stratagem  and  strength,  by 
desperate* tugging  and  pushing,  and  by  lying  flat  on 
my  waist  on  the  rolled-up  half  to  keep  it  quiet  while 
I  brought  the  loose  half  over.  No  sooner  had  I 
secured  the  hold-all  by  its  straps  than  I  realized  that 
it  was  no  more  a  hold-all  than  it  was  a  sleeping-bag 
and  a  field  tent,  and  that  its  contents  were  exposed 
to  the  weather  down  one  side,  where  they  bulged 


238       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

through  the  spaces  that  yawned  between  the  but- 
tons, strained  almost  to  bursting. 

I  still  believed  in  the  genius  that  had  devised  this 
trinity.  Clearly  the  jib-sails  which  made  it  a  field- 
tent  were  intended  to  serve  also  as  the  pockets  of 
the  hold-all.  I  had  done  wrong  to  flatten  them  out 
and  tuck  them  in,  frustrating  the  fulfilment  of  their 
function.  It  was  not  acting  fairly  by  the  inventor. 

I  unpacked  the  hold-all,  I  mean  the  field-tent. 

Then,  with  the  Commandant's  clothes  again  lying 
round  me  on  the  floor,  I  grappled  with  the  mystery 
of  the  jib-sails  and  their  cords.  The  jib-sails  and 
their  cords  were,  so  to  speak,  the  heart  of  this  in- 
fernal triple  entity. 

They  were  treacherous.  They  had  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  pockets,  but  owing  to  the  intricate  and 
malign  relations  of  their  cords,  it  was  impossible  to 
deal  faithfully  with  them  on  this  footing.  .When 
the  contents  had  been  packed  inside  them,  the  field- 
tent  asserted  itself  as  against  the  hold-all  and  re- 
fused to  roll  up.  And  I  am  sure  that  if  the  field- 
tent  had  had  to  be  set  up  in  a  field  in  a  hurry,  the 
hold-all  and  the  sleeping-bag  would  have  arisen  and 
insisted  on  their  consubstantial  rights. 

I  unpacked  the  field-tent  and  packed  it  all  over 
again  exactly  as  I  had  packed  it  before,  but  more 
carefully,  swearing  gently  and  continuously,  as  I 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM      §39 

tugged  with  my  arms  and  pushed  with  my  knees, 
and  pressed  hard  on  it  with  my  waist  to  keep  it  still. 
I  cursed  the  day  when  I  had  first  heard  of  it;  I 
cursed  myself  for  giving  it  to  the  Commandant; 
more  than  all  I  cursed  the  combined  ingenuity  and 
levity  of  its  creator,  who  had  indulged  his  fantasy  at 
our  expense,  without  a  thought  to  the  actual  condi- 
tions of  the  retreat  of  armies  and  of  ambulances. 

And  in  the  middle  of  it  all  Janet  came  in,  and 
curled  herself  up  in  a  corner,  and  forecast  luridly 
and  inconsolably  the  possible  fate  of  her  friends, 
the  nurses  in  the  "  Flandria."  For  the  moment  her 
coolness  and  her  wise  impassivity  had  gone.  Her 
behaviour  was  lacerating. 

This  was  the  very  worst  moment  we  had  come  to 
yet.1 

And  it  seemed  that  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mrs. 
Lambert  had  gone  to  bed,  regardless  of  the  retreat 
from  Ghent. 

Somewhere  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  the 
Commandant  came  back  from  Melle.2 


1  It  was  so  bad  that  it  made  me  forget  to  pack  the  Com- 
mandant's Burberry  and  his  Gillette  razors  and  his  pipe. 

2  The   Commandant  had  had  an  adventure.    The   Belgian 
guide  mistook  the  road  and  brought  the  car  straight  into  the 
German  lines  instead  of  the  British  lines  where  it  had  been 
sent.    If   the   Germans   hadn't  been  preoccupied   with   firing 
at  that  moment,  the  Commandant  and  Ascot  and  the  Belgian 
would  all  have  been  taken  prisoner. 


24O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

It  is  nearly  two  o'clock.  Downstairs,  in  the  great 
silent  hall  two  British  wounded  are  waiting  for  some 
ambulance  to  take  them  to  the  Station.  They  are 
sitting  bolt  upright  on  chairs  near  the  doorway, 
their  heads  nodding  with  drowsiness.  One  or  two 
Belgian  Red  Cross  men  wait  beside  them.  Opposite 
them,  on  three  other  chairs,  the  three  doctors,  Dr. 

Haynes,  Dr.  Bird  and  Dr. sit  waiting  for  our 

own  ambulance  to  take  them.  They  have  been  up 
all  night  and  are  utterly  exhausted.  They  sit,  fast 
asleep,  with  their  heads  bowed  on  their  breasts. 

Outside,  the  darkness  has  mist  and  a  raw  cold 
sting  in  it. 

A  wretched  ambulance  wagon  drawn  by  two 
horses  is  driven  up  to  the  door.  It  had  a  hood  once, 
but  the  hood  has  disappeared  and  only  the  naked 
hoops  remain.  The  British  wounded  from  two  [  ?] 
other  hospitals  are  packed  in  it  in  two  rows.  They 
sit  bolt  upright  under  the  hoops,  exposed  to  mist  and 
to  the  raw  cold  sting  of  the  night;  some  of  them 
wear  their  blankets  like  shawls  over  their  shoulders 
as  they  were  taken  from  their  beds.  The  shawls 
and  the  head  bandages  give  these  British  a  strange, 
foreign  look,  infinitely  helpless,  infinitely  pitiful. 

Nobody  seems  to  be  out  there  but  Mrs.  Torrence 
and  one  or  two  Belgian  Red  Cross  men.  She  and  I 
help  to  get  our  two  men  taken  gently  out  of  the  hall 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       24! 

and  stowed  away  in  the  ambulance  wagon.  There 
are  not  enough  blankets.  We  try  to  find  some. 

At  the  last  minute  two  bearers  come  forward, 
carrying  a  third.  He  is  tall  and  thin ;  he  is  wrapped 
in  a  coat  flung  loosely  over  his  sleeping- j acket ;  he 
wears  a  turban  of  bandages;  his  long  bare  feet  stick 
out  as  he  is  carried  along.  It  is  Cameron,  my  poor 
Highlander,  who  was  shot  through  the  brain. 

They  lift  him,  very  gently,  into  the  wagon. 

Then,  very  gently,  they  lift  him  out  again. 

This  attempt  to  save  him  is  desperate.  He  is 
dying. 

They  carry  him  up  the  steps  and  stand  him  there 
with  his  naked  feet  on  the  stone.  It  is  anguish  to  see 
those  thin  white  feet  on  the  stone;  I  take  off  my 
coat  and  put  it  under  them. 

It  is  all  I  can  do  for  him. 

Presently  they  carry  him  back  into  the  Hospital. 

They  can't  find  any  blankets.  I  run  over  to  the 
Hotel  Cecil  for  my  thick,  warm  travelling-rug  to 
wrap  round  the  knees  of  the  wounded,  shivering  in 
the  wagon. 

It  is  all  I  can  do  for  them. 

And  presently  the  wagon  is  turned  round,  slowly, 
almost  solemnly,  and  driven  off  into  the  darkness 
and  the  cold  mist,  with  its  load  of  weird  and  piteous 
figures,  wrapped  in  blankets  like  shawls.  Their 


242       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

bandages  show  blurred  white  spots  in  the  mist,  and 
they  are  gone. 
It  is  horrible. 

I  am  reminded  that  I  have  not  packed  yet,  nor 
dressed  for  the  journey.  I  go  over  and  pack  and 
dress.  I  leave  behind  what  I  don't  need  and  it  takes 
seven  minutes.  There  is  something  sad  and  terrible 
about  the  little  hotel,  and  its  proprietors  and  their 
daughter,  who  has  waited  on  me.  They  have  so  much 
the  air  of  waiting,  of  being  on  the  eve.  They  hang 
about  doing  nothing.  They  sit  mournfully  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  half-darkened  restaurant.  As  I  come 
and  go  they  smile  at  me  with  the  patient  Belgian 
smile  that  says,  " C'est  trisie,  n'est-ce  pas?"  and  no 
more. 

The  landlord  puts  on  his  soft  brown  felt  hat  and 
carries  my  luggage  over  to  the  "  Flandria."  He 
stays  there,  hanging  about  the  porch,  fascinated  by 
these  preparations  for  departure.  There  is  the 
same  terrible  half -darkness  here,  the  same  expectant 
stillness.  Now  and  then  the  servants  of  the  hospital 
look  at  each  other  and  there  are  whisperings,  mut- 
terings.  They  sound  sinister  somehow  and  inimical. 
Or  perhaps  I  imagine  this  because  I  do  not  take 
kindly  to  retreating.  Anyhow  I  am  only  aware  of 
them  afterwards.  For  now  it  is  time  to  go  and 


A  JOUR'NAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       243 

fetch  Miss  Ashley-Smith  and  her  three  wounded 
men  from  the  Convent. 

Tom  has  come  up  with  his  first  ambulance  car. 
He  is  waiting  for  orders  in  the  porch.  His  enor- 
mous motor  goggles  are  pushed  up  over  the  peak 
of  his  cap.  They  make  it  look  like  some  formidable 
helmet.  They  give  an  air  of  mastership  to  Tom's 
face.  At  this  last  hour  it  wears  its  expression  of 
righteous  protest,  of  volcanic  patience,  of  exasper- 
ated discipline. 

The  Commandant  is  nowhere  to  be  seen.  And 
every  minute  of  his  delay  increases  Tom's  sense  of 
tortured  integrity. 

I  tell  Tom  that  he  is  to  drive  me  at  once  to  the 
Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre.  He  wants  to  know  what 
for. 

I  tell  him  it  is  to  fetch  Miss  Ashley-Smith  and 
three  British  wounded. 

He  shrugs  his  shoulders.  He  knows  nothing 
about  the  Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre  and  Miss  Ashley- 
Smith  and  three  British  wounded,  and  his  shrug 
implies  that  he  cares  less. 

And  he  says  he  has  no  orders  to  go  and  fetch 
them. 

I  perceive  that  in  this  supreme  moment  I  am  up 
against  Tom's  superstition.  He  won't  move  any- 
where without  orders.  It  is  his  one  means  of  put- 


244       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

ting  himself  in  the  right  and  everybody  else  in  the 
wrong. 

And  the  worst  of  it  is  he  is  right. 

I  am  also  up  against  Tom's  sex  prejudices.  I 
remember  that  he  is  said  to  have  sworn  with  an  oath 
that  he  wasn't  going  to  take  orders  from  any 
woman. 

And  the  Commandant  is  nowhere  to  be  seen. 

Tom  sticks  to  the  ledge  of  the  porch  and  stares 
at  me  defiantly.  The  servants  of  the  Hospital  come 
out  and  look  at  us.  They  are  so  many  reinforce- 
ments to  Tom's  position. 

I  tell  him  that  the  arrangement  has  been  made 
with  the  Commandant's  consent,  and  I  repeat  firmly 
that  he  is  to  get  into  his  car  this  minute  and  drive 
to  the  Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre. 

He  says  he  does  not  know  where  the  Convent  is. 
It  may  be  anywhere. 

I  tell  him  where  it  .is,  and  he  says  again  he  hasn't 
got  orders. 

I  stand  over  him  and  with  savage  and  violent 
determination  I  say:  "You've  got  them  now!" 

And,  actually,  Tom  obeys.  He  says,  "  All  right, 
all  right,  all  right,"  very  fast,  and  humps  his  shoul- 
ders and  slouches  off  to  his  car.  He  cranks  it  up 
with  less  vehemence  than  I  have  yet  known  him 
bring  to  the  starting  of  any  car. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       245 

We  get  in.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  I  am  placable. 
I  say :  "  You  see,  Tom,  it  wouldn't  do  to  leave 
that  lady  and  three  British  wounded  behind,  would 
it?" 

What  he  says  about  orders  then  is  purely  by  way 
of  apology. 

Regardless  of  my  instructions,  he  does  what  I  did 
and  dashes  up  the  wrong  boulevard  as  if  the  Ger- 
mans were  even  now  marching  into  the  Place  be- 
hind him.  But  he  works  round  somehow  and  we 
arrive. 

They  are  all  there,  ready  and  waiting.  And  the 
Mother  Superior  and  two  of  her  nuns  are  in  the 
corridor.  They  bring  out  glasses  of  hot  milk  for 
everybody.  They  are  so  gentle  and  so  kind  that 
I  recall  with  agony  my  impatience  when  I  rang  at 
their  gate.  Even  familiar  French  words  desert  me 
in  this  crisis,  and  I  implore  Miss  Ashley-Smith  to 
convey  my  regrets  for  my  rudeness.  Their  only 
answer  is  to  smile  and  press  hot  milk  on  me.  I 
am  glad  of  it,  for  I  have  been  so  absorbed  in  the 
drama  of  preparation  that  I  have  entirely  forgotten 
to  eat  anything  since  lunch. 

The  wounded  are  brought  along  the  passage. 
We  help  them  into  the  ambulance.  Two,  Williams 

and  ,  are  only  slightly  wounded;  they  can  sit 

up  all  the  way.     But  the  third,  Fisher,  is  wounded 


246       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

in  the  head.  Sometimes  he  is  delirious  and  must 
be  looked  after.  A  fourth  man  is  dying  and  must 
be  left  behind. 

Then  we  say  good-bye  to  the  nuns. 

The  other  ambulance  cars  are  drawn  up  in  the 
Place  before  the  "  Flandria,"  waiting.  For  the 
first  time  I  hate  the  sight  of  them.  This  feeling 
is  inexplicable  but  profound. 

We  arrange  for  the  final  disposal  of  the  wounded 
in  one  of  the  new  Daimlers,  where  they  can  all  lie 
down.  Mrs.  Torrence  comes  out  and  helps  us. 
The  Commandant  is  not  there  yet.  Dr.  Haynes 

and  Dr.  Bird  pack  Dr.  away  well  inside  the 

car.  They  are  very  quiet  and  very  firm  and  re- 
fuse to  travel  otherwise  than  together.  Mrs.  Tor- 
rence goes  with  the  wounded. 

I  go  into  the  Hospital  and  upstairs  to  our  quarters 
to  see  if  anything  has  been  left  behind.  If  I  can 
find  Marie  we  must  take  her.  There  is  room,  after 
all. 

But  Marie  is  nowhere  to  be  seen. 

Nobody  is  to  be  seen  but  the  Belgian  night  nurses 
on  duty,  watching,  one  on  each  landing  at  the  en- 
trance to  her  corridor.  They  smile  at  me  gravely 
and  sadly  as  they  say  good-bye. 

I  have  left  many  places,  many  houses,  many  peo- 
ple behind  me,  knowing  that  I  shall  never  see  them 


A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       247 

again.  But  of  all  leave-takings  this  seems  to  me 
the  worst.  For  those  others  I  have  been  something, 
done  something  that  absolves  me.  But  for  these 
and  for  this  place  I  have  not  done  anything,  and 
now  there  is  not  anything  to  be  done. 

I  go  slowly  downstairs.  Each  flight  is  a  more 
abominable  descent.  At  each  flight  I  stand  still  and 
pull  myself  together  to  face  the  next  nurse  on  the 
next  landing.  At  the  second  story  I  go  past  with- 
out looking.  I  know  every  stain  on  the  floor  of  the 
corridor  there  as  you  turn  to  the  right.  The  num- 
ber of  the  door  and  the  names  on  the  card  beside 
it  have  made  a  pattern  on  my  brain. 


It  is  quarter  to  three. 

They  are  all  ready  now.  The  Commandant  is 
there  giving  the  final  orders  and  stowing  away  the 
nine  wounded  he  has  brought  from  Melle.  The 
hall  of  the  Hospital  is  utterly  deserted.  So  is  the 
Place  outside  it.  And  in  the  stillness  and  desola- 
tion our  going  has  an  air  of  intolerable  secrecy,  of 
furtive  avoidance  of  fate.  This  Field  Ambulance 
of  ours  abhors  retreat. 

It  is  dark  with  the  black  darkness  before  dawn. 

And  the  Belgian  Red  Cross  guides  have  all  gone. 
There  is  nobody  to  show  us  the  roads. 


248       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

At  the  last  minute  we  find  a  Belgian  soldier  who 
will  take  us  as  far  as  Ecloo. 

The  Commandant  has  arranged  to  stay  at  Ecloo 
for  a  few  hours.  Some  friends  there  have  offered 
him  their  house.  The  wounded  are  to  be  put  up  at 
the  Convent.  Ecloo  is  about  halfway  between 
Ghent  and  Bruges. 

We  start.  Tom's  car  goes  first  with  the  Bel- 
gian soldier  in  front.  Ursula  Dearmer,  Mrs.  Lam- 
bert, Miss  Ashley-Smith  and  Mr.  Riley  and  I  are 
inside.  The  Commandant  sits,  silent,  wrapped  in 
meditation,  on  the  step. 

We  are  not  going  so  very  fast,  not  faster  than 
the  three  cars  behind  us,  and  the  slowest  of  the 
three  (the  Fiat  with  the  hard  tyres,  carrying  the 
baggage)  sets  the  pace.  We  must  keep  within  their 
sight  or  they  may  lose  their  way.  But  though  we 
are  not  really  going  fast,  the  speed  seems  intolerable, 
especially  the  speed  that  swings  us  out  of  sight  of 
the  "  Flandria."  You  think  that  is  the  worst. 
But  it  isn't.  The  speed  with  its  steady  acceleration 
grows  more  intolerable  with  every  mile.  Your  sense 
of  safety  grows  intolerable. 

You  never  knew  that  safety  could  hurt  like  this. 

Somewhere  on  this  road  the  Belgian  Army  has 
gone  before  us.  We  have  got  to  go  with  it.  We 
have  had  our  orders. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       249 

That  thought  consoles  you,  but  not  for  long. 
You  may  call  it  following  the  Belgian  Army.  But 
the  Belgian  Army  is  retreating,  and  you  are  re- 
treating with  it.  There  is  nothing  else  you  can  do ; 
but  that  does  not  make  it  any  better.  And  this 
speed  of  the  motor  over  the  flat  roads,  this  speed 
that  cuts  the  air,  driving  its  furrow  so  fast  that  the 
wind  rushes  by  you  like  strong  water,  this  speed 
that  so  inspired  and  exalted  you  when  it  brought 
you  into  Flanders,  when  it  took  you  to  Antwerp 
and  Baerlaere  and  Lokeren  and  Melle,  this  vehement 
and  frightful  and  relentless  speed  is  the  thing  that 
beats  you  down  and  tortures  you.  For  several 
hours,  ever  since  you  had  your  orders  to  pack  up 
and  go,  you  have  been  working  with  no  other  pur- 
pose than  this  going;  you  have  contemplated  it 
many  times  with  equanimity,  with  indifference ;  you 
knew  all  along  that  it  was  not  possible  to  stay  in 
Ghent  for  ever;  and  wHen  you  were  helping  to  get 
the  wounded  into  the  ambulances  you  thought  it 
would  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  get  in 
yourself  and  go  with  them;  when  you  had  time  to 
think  about  it  you  were  even  aware  of  looking  for- 
ward with  pleasure  to  the  thrill  of  a  clean  run  before 
the  Germans.  You  never  thought,  and  nobody 
could  possibly  have  told  you,  that  it  would  be  like 
this. 


25O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

I  never  thought,  and  nobody  could  possibly  have 
told  me,  that  I  was  going  to  behave  as  I  did  then. 

The  thing  began  with  the  first  turn  of  the  road 
that  hid  the  "  Flandria."  Up  till  that  moment, 
whatever  I  may  have  felt  about  the  people  we  had 
to  leave  behind  us,  as  long  as  none  of  our  field- 
women  were  left  behind,  I  had  not  the  smallest 
objection  to  being  saved  myself.  And  if  it  had  oc- 
curred to  me  to  stay  behind  for  the  sake  of  one 
man  who  couldn't  be  moved  and  who  had  the  best 
surgeon  in  the  Hospital  and  the  pick  of  the  nursing- 
staff  to  look  after  him,  I  think  I  should  have  dis- 
posed of  the  idea  as  sheer  sentimentalism.  When 
I  was  with  him  to-night  I  could  think  of  nothing 
but  the  wounded  in  the  Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre. 
And  afterwards  there  had  been  so  much  to  do. 

And  now  that  there  was  nothing  more  to  do,  I 
couldn't  think  of  anything  but  that  one  man. 

The  night  before  came  back  to  me  in  a  vision, 
or  rather  an  obsession,  infinitely  more  present,  more 
visible  and  palpable  than  this  night  that  we  were 
living  in.  The  light  with  the  red  shade  hung  just 
over  my  head  on  my  right  hand;  the  blond  walls 
were  round  me;  they  shut  me  in  alone  with  the 
wounded  man  who  lay  stretched  before  me  on  the 
bed.  And  the  moments  were  measured  by  the 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM      251 

rhythm  of  his  breathing,  and  by  the  closing  and 
opening  of  his  eyes. 

I  thought,  he  will  open  his  eyes  to-night  and  look 
for  me  and  I  shall  not  be  there.  He  will  know 
that  he  has  been  left  to  the  Belgians,  who  cannot 
understand  him,  whom  he  cannot  understand. 
And  he  will  think  that  I  have  betrayed  him. 

I  felt  as  if  I  had  betrayed  him. 

I  am  sitting  between  Mr.  Riley  and  Miss  Ashley- 
Smith.  Mr.  Riley  is  ill ;  he  has  got  blood-poisoning 
through  a  cut  in  his  hand.  Every  now  and  then  I 
remember  him,  and  draw  the  rug  over  his  knees 
as  it  slips.  Miss  Ashley-Smith,  tired  with  her  night 
watching,  has  gone  to  sleep  with  her  head  on  my 
shoulder,  where  it  must  be  horribly  jolted  and 
shaken  by  my  cough,  which  of  course  chooses  this 
moment  to  break  out  again.  I  try  to  get  into  a 
position  that  will  rest  her  better;  and  between  her 
and  Mr.  Riley  I  forget  for  a  second. 

Then  the  obsession  begins  again,  and  I  am  shut 
in  between  the  blond  walls  with  the  wounded  man. 

I  feel  his  hand  and  arm  lying  heavily  on  my 
shoulder  in  the  attempt  to  support  me  as  I  kneel 
by  his  bed  with  my  arms  stretched  out  together 
under  the  hollow  of  his  back,  as  we  wait  for  the 
pillow  that  never  comes. 


252       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

It  is  quite  certain  that  I  have  betrayed  him. 

It  seems  to  me  then  that  nothing  that  could  hap- 
pen to  me  in  Ghent  could  be  more  infernal  than 
leaving  it.  And  I  think  that  when  the  ambulance 
stops  to  put  down  the  Belgian  soldier  I  will  get  out 
and  walk  back  with  him  to  Ghent. 

Every  half-mile  I  think  that  the  ambulance  will 
stop  to  put  down  the  Belgian  soldier. 

But  the  ambulance  does  not  stop.  It  goes  on  and 
on,  and  we  have  got  to  Ecloo  before  we  seem  to 
have  put  three  miles  between  us  and  Ghent. 

Still,  though  I'm  dead  tired  when  we  get  there, 
I  can  walk  three  miles  easily.  I  do  not  feel  at  all 
insane  with  my  obsession.  On  the  contrary,  these 
moments  are  moments  of  exceptional  lucidity.1 
While  the  Commandant  goes  to  look  for  the  Con- 
vent I  get  out  and  look  for  the  Belgian  soldier. 
Other  Belgian  soldiers  have  joined  him  in  the  vil- 
lage street. 

I  tell  him  I  want  to  go  back  to  Ghent.  I  ask 
him  how  far  it  is  to  walk,  and  if  he  will  take  me. 
And  he  says  it  is  twenty  kilometres.  The  other 
soldiers  say,  too,  it  is  twenty  kilometres.  I  had 
thought  it  couldn't  possibly  be  more  than  four  or 
five  at  the  outside.  And  I  am  just  sane  enough  to 

1Even  now,  five  months  after,  I  cannot  tell  whether  it  was 
or  was  not  insanity. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       253 

know  that  I  can't  walk  as  far  as  that  if  I'm  to  be 
any  good  when  I  get  there. 

We  wait  in  the  village  while  they  find  the  Con- 
vent and  take  the  wounded  men  there;  we  wait 
while  the  Commandant  goes  off  in  the  dark  to  find 
his  friend's  house. 

The  house  stands  in  a  garden  somewhere  beyond 
the  railway  station,  up  a  rough  village  street  and  a 
stretch  of  country  road.  It  is  about  four  in  the 
morning  when  we  get  there.  A  thin  ooze  of  light 
is  beginning  to  leak  through  the  mist.  The  mist 
holds  it  as  a  dark  cloth  holds  a  fluid  that  bleaches  it. 

There  is  something  queer  about  this  light.  There 
is  something  queer,  something  almost  inimical, 
about  the  garden,  as  if  it  tried  to  protect  itself  by 
enchantment  from  the  fifteen  who  are  invading  it. 
The  mist  stands  straight  up  from  the  earth  like  a 
high  wall  drawn  close  about  the  house;  it  blocks 
with  dense  grey  stuff  every  inch  of  space  between 
the  bushes  and  trees;  they  are  thrust  forward  rank 
upon  rank,  closing  in  upon  the  house;  they  loom 
enormous  and  near.  A  few  paces  further  back 
they  appear  as  without  substance  in  the  dense  grey 
stuff  that  invests  them;  their  tops  are  tangled  and 
lost  in  a  web  of  grey.  In  this  strange  garden  it  is 
as  if  space  itself  had  solidified  in  masses,  and  solid 
objects  had  become  spaces  between. 


254       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

When  your  eyes  get  used  to  this  curious  inversion 
it  is  as  if  the  mist  was  no  longer  a  wall  but  a 
growth ;  the  garden  is  the  heart  of  a  jungle  bleached 
by  enchantment  and  struck  with  stillness  and  cold; 
a  tangle  of  grey;  a  muffled,  huddled  and  stifled 
bower,  all  grey,  and  webbed  and  laced  with  grey. 

The  door  of  the  house  opens  and  the  effect  of 
queerness,  of  inimical  magic  disappears. 

Mr.  E.,  our  kind  Dutch  host,  and  Mrs.  E.,  our 
kind  English  hostess,  have  got  up  out  of  their  beds 
to  receive  us.  This  hospitality  of  theirs  is  not  a 
little  thing  when  you  think  that  their  house  is  to  be 
invaded  by  Germans,  perhaps  to-day.1 

They  do  not  allow  you  to  think  of  it.  For  all 
you  are  to  see  of  the  tragedy  they  and  their  house 
might  be  remaining  at  Ecloo  in  leisure  and  perfect 
hospitality  and  peace.  Only,  as  they  see  us  pour- 
ing in  over  their  threshold  a  hovering  twinkle  in 
their  kind  eyes  shows  that  they  are  not  blind  to  the 
comic  aspect  of  retreats. 

They  have  only  one  spare  bedroom,  which  they 
offer;  but  they  have  filled  their  drawing-room  with 
blankets;  piles  and  piles  of  white  fleecy  blankets  on 
chairs  and  sofas  and  on  the  floor.  And  they  have 
built  up  a  roaring  fire.  It  is  as  if  they  were  suc- 

1  It  is  really  dreadful  to  think  of  the  nuisance  we  must  have 
been  to  these  dear  people  on  the  eve  of  their  own  flight. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM       255 

couring  fifteen  survivors  of  shipwreck  or  of  earth- 
quake, or  the  remnants  of  a  forlorn  hope.  To  be 
sure,  we  are  flying  from  Ghent,  but  we  have  only 
flown  twenty  kilometres  as  yet. 

However,  most  of  the  Corps  have  been  up  all 
night  for  several  nights,  and  the  mist  outside  is  a 
clinging  and  a  biting  mist,  and  everybody  is  grate- 
ful. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  look  of  the  E.s'  drawing- 
room,  smothered  in  blankets  and  littered  with  the 
members  of  the  Corps,  who  lay  about  it  in  every 
pathetic  posture  of  fatigue.  A  group  of  seven  or 
eight  snuggled  down  among  the  blankets  on  the  floor 
in  front  of  the  hearth,  like  a  camp  before  a  camp- 
fire.  Janet  McNeil,  curled  up  on  one  window-seat, 
and  Ursula  Dearmer,  rolled  in  a  blanket  on  the  other, 
had  the  heart-rending  beauty  of  furry  animals  under 
torpor.  The  chauffeurs  Tom  and  Bert  made  them- 
selves entirely  lovable  by  going  to  sleep  bolt  upright 
on  dining-room  chairs  on  the  outer  ring  of  the 
camp.  The  E.s'  furniture  came  in  where  it  could 
with  fantastic  and  incongruous  effect. 

I  don't  know  how  I  got  through  the  next  three 
hours,  for  my  obsession  came  back  on  me  again 
and  again,  and  as  soon  as  I  shut  my  eyes  I  saw 
the  face  and  eyes  of  the  wounded  man.  I  remem- 
ber sitting  part  of  the  time  beside  Miss  Ashley- 


256       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

Smith,  wide-awake,  in  a  corner  of  the  room  be- 
hind Bert's  chair.  I  remember  wandering  about 
the  E.s'  house.  I  must  have  got  out  of  it,  for  I 
also  remember  finding  myself  in  their  garden,  at 
sunrise. 

And  I  remember  the  garden,  though  I  was  not 
perfectly  aware  of  it  at  the  time.  It  had  a  divine 
beauty,  a  serenity  that  refused  to  enter  into,  to 
ally  itself  in  any  way  with  an  experience  tainted 
by  the  sadness  of  the  retreat  from  Ghent. 

But  because  of  its  supernatural  detachment  and 
tranquillity  and  its  no  less  supernatural  illumination 
I  recalled  it  the  more  vividly  afterwards. 

It  was  full  of  tall  bushes  and  little  slender  trees 
standing  in  a  delicate  light.  The  mist  had  cleared 
to  the  transparency  of  still  water,  so  still  that  under 
it  the  bushes  and  the  trees  stood  in  a  cold,  quiet 
radiance  without  a  shimmer.  The  light  itself  was 
intensely  still.  What  you  saw  was  not  the  approach 
of  light,  but  its  mysterious  arrest.  It  was  held 
suspended  in  crystalline  vapour,  in  thin  shafts  of 
violet  and  gold,  clear  as  panes;  it  was  caught  and 
lifted  upwards  by  the  high  bushes  and  the  slender 
trees;  it  was  veiled  in  the  silver-green  masses  of 
their  tops.  Every  green  leaf  and  every  blade  of 
grass  was  a  vessel  charged.  It  was  not  so  much 
that  the  light  revealed  these  things  as  that  these 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       257 

things  revealed  the  light.  There  was  no  kindling 
touch,  no  tremor  of  dawn  in  that  garden.  It  was 
as  if  it  had  removed  the  walls  and  put  off  the  lacing 
webs  and  the  thick  cloths  of  grey  stuff  by  some 
mystic  impulse  of  its  own,  as  if  it  maintained  it- 
self in  stillness  by  an  inner  flame.  Only  the  very 
finest  tissues  yet  clung  to  it,  to  show  that  it  was 
the  same  garden  that  disclosed  itself  in  this  clarity 
and  beauty. 

The  next  thing  I  remember  is  the  Chaplain  com- 
ing to  me  and  our  going  together  into  the  E.s' 
dining-room,  and  Miss  Ashley- Smith's  joining  us 
there.  My  malady  was  contagious  and  she  had 
caught  it,  but  with  no  damage  to  her  self-con- 
trol. 

She  says  very  simply  and  quietly  that  she  is  go- 
ing back  to  Ghent.  And  the  infection  spreads  to 
the  Chaplain.  He  says  that  neither  of  us  is  going 
back  to  Ghent,  but  that  he  is  going.  The  poor 
boy  tries  to  arrange  with  us  how  he  may  best  do 
it,  in  secrecy,  without  poisoning  the  Commandant 1 
and  the  whole  Ambulance  with  the  spirit  of  return. 
With  difficulty  we  convince  him  that  it  would  be 
useless  for  any  man  to  go.  He  would  be  taken 
prisoner  the  minute  he  showed  his  nose  in  the 

1  The  Commandant  had  his  own  scheme  for  going  back  to 
Ghent,  which  fortunately  he  did  not  carry  out. 


258       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

"  Flandria  "  and  set  to  dig  trenches  till  the  end  of 
the  War. 

Then  he  says,  if  only  he  had  his  cassock  with 
him.  They  would  respect  that  (which  is  open  to 
doubt). 

We  are  there  a  long  time  discussing  which  of 
us  is  going  back  to  Ghent.  Miss  Ashley-Smith  is 
fertile  and  ingenious  in  argument.  She  is  a  nurse, 
and  I  and  the  Chaplain  are  not.  She  has  friends  in 
Ghent  who  have  not  been  warned,  whom  she  must 
go  back  to.  In  any  case,  she  says,  it  was  a  toss-up 
whether  she  went  or  stayed. 

And  while  we  are  still  arguing,  we  go  out  on 
the  road  that  leads  to  the  village,  to  find  the  am- 
bulances and  see  if  any  of  the  chauffeurs  will  take 
us  back  to  Ghent.  I  am  not  very  hopeful  about 
the  means  of  transport.  I  do  not  think  that  Tom 
or  any  of  the  chauffeurs  will  move,  this  time,  with- 
out orders  from  the  Commandant.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  Commandant  will  let  any  of  us  go  except 
himself. 

And  Miss  Ashley- Smith  says  if  only  she  had  a 
horse. 

If  she  had  a  horse  she  would  be  in  Ghent  in  no 
time.  Perhaps,  if  none  of  the  chauffeurs  will  take 
her  back,  she  can  find  a  horse  in  the  village. 

She  keeps  on  saying  very  quietly  and   simply 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       259 

that  she  is  going,  and  explaining  the  reasons  why 
she  should  go  rather  than  anybody  else.  And  I 
bring  forward  every  reason  I  can  think  of  why  she 
should  do  nothing  of  the  sort. 

I  abhor  the  possibility  of  her  going  back  instead 
of  me;  but  I  am  not  yet  afraid  of  it.  I  do  not  yet 
think  seriously  that  she  will  do  it.  I  do  not  see 
how  she  is  going  to,  if  the  chauffeurs  refuse  to  take 
her.  (I  do  not  see  how,  in  this  case,  I  am  to  go 
myself.)  And  I  do  not  imagine  for  one  moment 
that  she  will  find  a  horse.  Still,  I  am  vaguely  un- 
easy. And  the  Chaplain  doesn't  make  it  any  bet- 
ter by  backing  her  up  and  declaring  that  as  she 
will  be  more  good  than  either  of  us  when  she  gets 
there,  her  going  is  the  best  thing  that  in  the  circum- 
stances can  be  done. 

And  in  the  end,  with  an  extreme  quietness  and 
simplicity,  she  went. 

We  had  not  yet  found  the  ambulance  cars,  and 
it  seemed  pretty  certain  that  Miss  Ashley-Smith 
would  not  get  her  horse  any  more  than  the  Chap- 
lain could  get  his  cassock. 

And  then,  just  when  we  thought  the  difficulties 
of  transport  were  insuperable,  we  came  straight  on 
the  railway  lines  and  the  station,  where  a  train 
had  pulled  up  on  its  way  to  Ghent.  Miss  Ashley- 
Smith  got  on  to  the  train.  I  got  on  too,  to  go 


260      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

with  her,  and  the  Chaplain,  who  is  abominably 
strong,  put  his  arms  round  my  waist  and  pulled  me 
off. 

I  have  never  ceased  to  wish  that  I  had  hung  on 
to  that  train. 

On  our  way  back  to  the  E.s'  house  we  met  the 
Commandant  and  told  him  what  had  happened.  I 
said  I  thought  it  was  the  worst  thing  that  had  hap- 
pened yet.  It  wasn't  the  smallest  consolation  when 
he  said  it  was  the  most  sensible  solution. 

And  when  Mrs.  for  fifteen  consecutive 

seconds  took  the  view  that  I  had  decoyed  Miss 
Ashley-Smith  out  on  to  that  accursed  road  in  order 
to  send  her  to  Ghent,  and  deliberately  persuaded 
her  to  go  back  to  the  "  Flandria  "  instead  of  me, 
for  fifteen  consecutive  seconds  I  believed  that  this 
diabolical  thing  was  what  I  had  actually  done. 

Mrs.  's  indignation  never  blazes  away  for 

more  than  fifteen  seconds;  but  while  the  conflagra- 
tion lasts  it  is  terrific.  And  on  circumstantial  evi- 
dence the  case  was  black  against  me.  When  last 
seen,  Miss  Ashley-Smith  was  entirely  willing  to  be 
saved.  She  goes  out  for  a  walk  with  me  along 
a  quiet  country  road,  and  the  next  thing  you  hear 
is  that  she  has  gone  back  to  Ghent.  And  since, 
actually  and  really,  it  was  my  obsession  that  had 
passed  into  her,  I  felt  that  if  I  had  taken  Miss 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       26l 

Ashley-Smith  down  that  road  and  murdered  her  in 
a  dyke  my  responsibility  wouldn't  have  been  a  bit 
worse,  if  as  bad. 

And  it  seemed  to  me  that  all  the  people  scattered 
among  the  blankets  in  that  strange  room,  those  that 
still  lay  snuggling  down  amiably  in  the  warmth,  and 
those  that  had  started  to  their  feet  in  dismay,  and 
those  that  sat  on  chairs  upright  and  apart,  were 
hostile  with  a  just  and  righteous  .hostility,  that  they 
had  an  intimate  knowledge  of  my  crime,  and  had 
risen  up  in  abhorrence  of  the  thing  I  was. 

And  somewhere,  as  if  they  were  far  off  in  some 
blessed  place  on  the  other  side  of  this  nightmare, 
I  was  aware  of  the  merciful  and  pitiful  faces  of 
Mrs.  Lambert  and  Janet  McNeil. 

Then,  close  beside  me,  there  was  a  sudden  heaving 
of  the  Chaplain's  broad  shoulders  as  he  faced  the 
room. 

And  I  heard  him  saying,  in  the  same  voice  in 
which  he  had  declared  that  he  was  going  to  hold 
Matins,  that  it  wasn't  my  fault  at  all  —  that  it  was 
he  who  had  persuaded  Miss  Ashley-Smith  to  go 
back  to  Ghent.1 


girl's  courage  and  self-devotion  were  enough  to  es- 
tablish our  innocence  —  they  needed  no  persuasion.  But  I 
still  hold  myself  responsible  for  her  going,  since  it  was  my 
failure  to  control  my  obsession  that  first  of  all  put  the  idea 
in  her  head. 


262       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

The  Chaplain  has  a  moral  nerve  that  never  fails 
him. 

Then  Mrs.  Torrence  says  that  she  is  going  back 
to  protect  Miss  Ashley-Smith,  and  Ursula  Dearmer 
says  that  she  is  going  back  to  protect  Mrs.  Tor- 
rence, and  somebody  down  in  the  blankets  remarks 
that  the  thing  was  settled  last  night,  and  that  all 
this  going  back  is  simply  rotten. 

I  can  only  repeat  that  it  is  all  my  fault,  and  that 
therefore,  if  Mrs.  Torrence  goes  back,  nobody  is 
going  back  with  her  but  me. 

And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  three  motor  am- 
bulances, with  possibly  the  entire  Corps  inside  them, 
certainly  with  the  five  women  and  the  Chaplain  and 
the  Commandant,  would  presently  have  been  seen 
tearing  along  the  road  to  Ghent,  one  in  violent  pur- 
suit of  the  other,  if  we  had  not  telephoned  and  re- 
ceived news  of  Miss  Ashley-Smith's  safe  arrival  at 
the  "  Flandria,"  and  orders  that  no  more  women 
were  to  return  to  Ghent. 

Among  all  the  variously  assorted  anguish  of  that 
halt  at  Ecloo  the  figures  and  the  behaviour  of  Mrs. 
E.  and  her  husband  and  their  children  are  beautiful 
to  remember  —  their  courtesy,  their  serenity,  their 
gentle  and  absolving  wonder  that  anybody  should 
see  anything  in  the  least  frightful  or  distressing, 


A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN    BELGIUM      263 

or  even  disconcerting  and  unusual,  in  the  situation ; 
the  little  girl  who  sat  beside  me,  showing  me  her 
picture-book  of  animals,  accepting  gravely  and  ear- 
nestly all  that  you  had  to  tell  her  about  the  ways 
of  squirrels,  of  kangaroos  and  opossums,  while  we 
waited  for  the  ambulance  cars  to  take  us  to  Bruges ; 
the  boy  who  ran  after  us  as  we  went,  and  stood 
looking  after  us  and  waving  to  us  in  the  lane;  the 
aspect  of  that  Flemish  house  and  garden  as  we  left 
them  —  there  is  no  word  that  embraces  all  these 
things  but  beauty. 

We  stopped  in  the  village  to  take  up  our  wounded 
from  the  Convent.  The  nuns  brought  us  through 
a  long  passage  and  across  a  little  court  to  the  re- 
fectory, which  had  been  turned  into  a  ward.  Bowls 
steaming  with  the  morning  meal  for  the  patients 
stood  on  narrow  tables  between  the  two  rows  of 
beds.  Each  bed  was  hung  round  and  littered  with 
haversacks,  boots,  rifles,  bandoliers  and  uniforms 
bloody  and  begrimed.  Except  for  the  figures  of 
the  nuns  and  the  aspect  of  its  white- washed  walls 
and  its  atmosphere  of  incorruptible  peace,  the  place 
might  have  been  a  barracks  or  the  dormitory  in  a 
night  lodging,  rather  than  a  convent  ward. 

When  we  had  found  and  dressed  our  men,  we 
led  them  out  as  we  had  come.  As  we  went  we  saw, 


264      A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

framed  through  some  open  doorway,  sunlight  and 
vivid  green,  and  the  high  walls  and  clipped  alleys 
of  the  Convent  garden. 

Of  all  our  sad  contacts  and  separations,  these 
leave-takings   at   the   convents   were   the   saddest. 
And  it  was  not  only  that  this  place  had  the  same 
poignant  and  unbearable  beauty  as  the  place  we  had 
just  left,  but  its  beauty  was  unique.     You  felt  that 
if  the  friends  you  had  just  left  were  turned  out 
of  their  house  and  garden  to-morrow,  they  might 
still  return  some  day.     But  here  you  saw  a  care- 
fully guarded  and  fragile  loveliness  on  the  very 
eve  of  its  dissolution.     The  place  was  fairly  sat- 
urated with  holiness,  and  the  beauty  of  holiness  was 
in  the  faces  and  in  every  gesture  of  the  nuns.     And 
you  felt  that  they  and  their  faces  and  their  gestures 
were  impermanent,  that  this  highly  specialized  form 
of  holiness  had  continued  with  difficulty  until  now, 
that  it  hung  by  a  single  thread  to  a  world  that  had 
departed  very  far  from  it. 

Yet,  for  the  moment  while  you  looked  at  it,  it 
maintained  itself  in  perfection. 

We  shall  never  know  all  that  the  War  has  anni- 
hilated. But  for  that  moment  of  time  while  it 
lasted,  the  Convent  at  Ecloo  annihilated  the  nine- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  every  century  be- 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       265 

tween  now  and  the  fifteenth.  What  you  saw  was 
a  piece  of  life  cut  straight  out  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
What  you  felt  was  the  guarded  and  hidden  beauty 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  beauty  of  obedience,  sim- 
plicity and  chastity,  of  souls  set  apart  and  dedicated, 
the  whole  insoluble  secret  charm  of  the  cloistered 
life.  The  very  horror  of  the  invasion  that  threat- 
ened it  at  this  hour  of  the  twentieth  century  was 
a  horror  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

But  these  devoted  women  did  not  seem  aware 
of  it.  The  little  high-bred  English  nun  who  con- 
ducted us  talked  politely  and  placidly  of  England 
and  of  English  things  as  of  things  remembered  with 
a  certain  mortal  affection  but  left  behind  without 
regret.  It  was  as  if  she  contemplated  the  eternal 
continuance  of  the  Convent  at  Ecloo  with  no  break 
in  its  divine  tranquillity.  One  sister  went  so  far 
as  to  express  the  hope  that  their  Convent  would  be 
spared.  It  was  as  if  she  were  uttering  some  merely 
perfunctory  piety.  The  rest,  without  ceasing  from 
their  ministrations,  looked  up  at  us  and  smiled. 

On  the  way  up  to  Bruges  we  passed  whole  regi- 
ments of  the  Belgian  Army  in  retreat.  They 
trooped  along  in  straggling  disorder,  their  rifles  at 
trail;  behind  them  the  standard-bearers  trudged, 


266       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

carrying  the  standard  furled  and  covered  with  black. 
The  speed  of  our  cars  as  we  overtook  them  was 
more  insufferable  than  ever. 


[Bruges.] 

WE  thought  that  the  Belgian  Army  would  be 
quartered  in  Bruges,  and  that  we  should  find  a 
hospital  there  and  serve  the  Army  from  that  base. 

We  took  our  wounded  to  the  Convent,  and  set 
out  to  find  quarters  for  ourselves  in  the  town.  We 
had  orders  to  meet  at  the  Convent  again  at  a  certain 
hour. 

Most  of  the  Corps  were  being  put  up  at  the  Con- 
vent. The  rest  of  us  had  to  look  for  rooms. 

In  the  search  I  got  separated  from  the  Corps,  and 
wandered  about  the  streets  of  Bruges  with  much 
interest  and  a  sense  of  great  intimacy  and  leisure. 
By  the  time  I  had  found  a  pension  in  a  narrow 
street  behind  the  market-place,  I  felt  it  to  be  quite 
certain  that  we  should  stay  in  Bruges  at  least  as 
long  as  we  had  stayed  in  Ghent,  and  what  moments 
I  could  spare  from  the  obsession  of  Ghent  I  spent 
in  contemplating  the  Belfry.  Very  soon  it  was  time 
to  go  back  to  the  Convent.  The  way  to  the  Con- 
vent was  through  many  tortuous  streets,  but  I  was 
going  in  the  right  direction,  accompanied  by  a  kind 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       267 

Flamand  and  her  husband,  when  at  the  turn  by  the 
canal  bridge  I  was  nearly  run  over  by  one  of  our 
own  ambulance  cars.  It  was  Bert's  car,  and  he  was 
driving  with  fury  and  perturbation  away  from  the 
Convent  and  towards  the  town.  Janet  McNeil  was 
with  him.  They  stopped  to  tell  me  that  we  had 
orders  to  clear  out  of  Bruges.  The  Germans  had 
taken  Ghent  and  were  coming  on  to  Bruges.  .We 
had  orders  to  go  on  to  Ostend. 

We  found  the  rest  of  the  cars  drawn  up  in  a 
street  near  the  Convent.  We  had  not  been  two 
hours  in  Bruges,  and  we  left  it,  if  anything,  quicker 
than  we  had  come  in.  The  flat  land  fairly  dropped 
away  before  our  speed.  I  sat  on  the  back  step  of 
the  leading  car,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  look 
of  those  ambulances,  three  in  a  line,  as  they  came 
into  sight  scooting  round  the  turns  on  the  road  to 
Ostend. 

Besides  the  wounded  we  had  brought  from  Ghent, 
we  took  with  us  three  footsore  Tommies  whom  we 
had  picked  up  in  Bruges.  They  had  had  a  long 
march.  The  stoutest,  biggest  and  most  robust  of 
these  three  fainted  just  as  we  drew  up  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  Kursaal  at  Ostend. 


268       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

[Ostend.] 

THE  Kursaal  had  been  taken  by  some  English 
and  American  women  and  turned  into  a  Hospital. 
It  was  filled  already  to  overflowing,  but  they  found 
room  for  our  wounded  for  the  night.  Ostend  was 
to  be  evacuated  in  the  morning.  In  fact,  we  were 
considered  to  be  running  things  rather  fine  by  stay- 
ing here  instead  of  going  on  straight  to  Dunkirk. 
It  was  supposed  that  if  the  Germans  were  not  yet 
in  Bruges  they  might  be  there  any  minute. 

But  we  had  had  so  many  premature  orders  to 
clear  out,  and  the  Germans  had  always  been  hours 
behind  time,  and  we  judged  it  a  safe  risk.  Besides, 
there  were  forty-seven  Belgian  wounded  in  Bruges, 
and  three  of  our  ambulance  cars  were  going  back 
to  fetch  them. 

There  was  some  agitation  as  to  who  would  and 
who  wouldn't  be  allowed  to  go  back  to  Bruges. 
The  Commandant  was  at  first  inclined  to  reject  his 
Secretary  as  unfit.  But  if  you  take  him  the  right 
way  he  is  fairly  tractable,  and  I  managed  to  con- 
vince him  that  nothing  but  going  back  to  Bruges 
could  make  up  for  my  failure  to  go  back  to  Ghent. 
He  earned  my  everlasting  gratitude  by  giving  me 
leave.  As  for  Mrs.  Torrence,  she  had  no  difficulty. 
She  was  obviously  competent. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       269 

Then,  just  as  I  was  congratulating  myself  that 
the  shame  of  Ecloo  was  to  be  wiped  out  (to  say 
nothing  of  that  ignominious  overthrow  at  Melle), 
there  occurred  a  contretemps  that  made  our  ambu- 
lance conspicuous  among  the  many  ambulances  in 
the  courtyard  of  the  Hospital. 

We  had  reckoned  without  the  mistimed  chivalry 
of  our  chauffeurs. 

They  had  all,  even  Tom,  been  quite  pathetically 
kind  and  gentle  during  and  ever  since  the  flight 
from  Ghent.  (I  remember  poor  Newlands  coming 
up  with  his  bottle  of  formamint  just  as  we  were 
preparing  to  leave  Ecloo.)  It  never  occurred  to 
us  that  there  was  anything  ominous  in  this  mood. 

Mrs.  Torrence  and  I  were  just  going  to  get  into 
(I  think)  Newlands'  car,  when  we  were  aware  of 
Newlands  standing  fixed  on  the  steps  of  the  Hos- 
pital, looking  like  Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmark,  in 
khaki,  and  flatly  refusing  to  drive  his  car  into 
Bruges,  not  only  if  we  were  in  his  car,  but  if 
one  woman  went  with  the  expedition  in  any  other 
car. 

He  stood  there,  very  upright,  on  the  steps  of  the 
Hospital,  and  rather  pale,  while  the  Commandant 
and  Mrs.  Torrence  surged  up  to  him  in  fury.  The 
Commandant  told  him  he  would  be  sacked  for  in- 
subordination, and  Mrs.  Torrence,  in  a  wild  flight 


2/O       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

of  fancy,  threatened  to  expose  him  "  in  the  papers." 

But  Newlands  stood  his  ground.  He  was  even 
more  like  Lord  Kitchener  than  Tom.  He  simply 
could  not  get  over  the  idea  that  women  were  to  be 
protected.  And  to  take  the  women  into  Bruges 
when  the  Germans  were,  for  all  we  knew,  in  Bruges, 
was  an  impossibility  to  Newlands,  as  it  would  have 
been  to  Lord  Kitchener.  So  he  went  on  refusing 
to  take  his  car  into  Bruges  if  one  woman  went  with 
the  expedition.  In  retort  to  a  charge  of  cold  feet, 
he  intimated  that  he  was  ready  to  drive  into  any 
hell  you  pleased,  provided  he  hadn't  got  to  take  any 
women  with  him.  He  didn't  care  if  he  was  sacked. 
He  didn't  care  if  Mrs.  Torrence  did  report  him  in 
the  papers.  He  wouldn't  drive  his  car  into  Bruges 
if  one  woman  — 

Here,  in  his  utter  disregard  of  all  discipline,  the 
likeness  between  Newlands  and  Lord  Kitchener 
ends.  Enough  that  he  drove  his  car  into  Bruges 
on  his  own  terms,  and  Mrs.  Torrence  and  I  were 
left  behind. 

The  expedition  to  Bruges  returned  safely  with 
the  forty-seven  Belgian  wounded. 

We  found  rooms  in  a  large  hotel  on  the  Digue, 
overlooking  the  sea.  Before  evening  I  went  round 
to  the  Hospital  to  see  Miss  Ashley-Smith's  three 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       27! 

wounded  men.  The  Kursaal  is  built  in  terraces  and 
galleries  going  all  round  the  front  and  side  of  it. 
I  took  the  wrong  turning  round  one  of  them  and 
found  myself  in  the  doorway  of  an  immense  ward. 
From  somewhere  inside  there  came  loud  and  lac- 
erating screams,  high-pitched  but  appallingly  mo- 
notonous and  without  intervals.  I  thought  it  was 
a  man  in  delirium ;  I  even  thought  it  might  be  poor 
Fisher,  of  whose  attacks  we  had  been  warned.  I 
went  in. 

I  had  barely  got  a  yard  inside  the  ward  before 
a  kind  little  rosy-faced  English  nurse  ran  up  to  me. 
I  told  her  what  I  wanted. 

She  said,  "  You'd  better  go  back.  You  won't  be 
able  to  stand  it." 

Even  then  I  didn't  take  it  in,  and  said  I  supposed 
the  poor  man  was  delirious. 

She  cried  out,  "  No !  No !  He  is  having  his  leg 
taken  off." 

They  had  run  short  of  anaesthetics. 

I  don't  know  what  I  must  have  looked  like,  but 
the  little  rosy- faced  nurse  grabbed  me  and  said, 
"  Come  away.  You'll  faint  if  you  see  it." 

And  I  went  away.  Somebody  took  me  into  the 
right  ward,  where  I  found  Fisher  and  Williams  and 
the  other  man.  Fisher  was  none  the  worse  for  his 


272       A  JOUR'NAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN   BELGIUM 

journey,  and  Williams  and  the  other  man  were  very 
cheerful.  Another  English  nurse,  who  must  have 
had  the  tact  of  a  heavenly  angel,  brought  up  a  bowl 
of  chicken  broth  and  said  I  might  feed  Fisher  if  I 
liked.  So  I  sat  a  little  while  there,  feeding  Fisher, 
and  regretting  for  the  hundredth  time  that  I  had  not 
had  the  foresight  to  be  trained  as  a  nurse  when  I 
was  young.  Unfortunately,  though  I  foresaw  this 
war  ten  years  ago,  I  had  not  foreseen  it  when  I 
was  young.  I  told  the  men  I  would  come  and  see 
them  early  in  the  morning,  and  bring  them  some 
money,  as  I  had  promised  Miss  Ashley-Smith.  I 
never  saw  them  again. 

Nothing  happened  quite  as  I  had  planned  it. 

To  begin  with,  we  had  discovered  as  we  lunched 
at  Bruges  that  the  funds  remaining  in  the  leather 
purse-belt  were  hardly  enough  to  keep  the  Ambu- 
lance going  for  another  week.  And  our  hotel  ex- 
penses at  Ostend  were  reducing  its  term  to  a  prob- 
lematic three  days.  So  it  was  more  or  less  settled 
amongst  us  that  somebody  would  have  to  go  over 
to  England  the  next  day  and  return  with  funds, 
and  that  the  supernumerary  Secretary  was,  on  the 
whole,  the  fittest  person  for  the  job. 

I  slept  peaceably  on  this  prospect  of  a  usefulness 
that  seemed  to  justify  my  existence  at  a  moment 
when  it  most  needed  vindication. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       2/3 

[Tuesday,  13^.] 

I  GOT  up  at  six.  Last  thing  at  night  I  had  said 
to  myself  that  I  must  wake  early  and  go  round  to 
the  Hospital  with  the  money. 

With  my  first  sleep  the  obsession  of  Ghent  had 
slackened  its  hold.  And  though  it  came  back  again 
after  I  had  got  up,  dressed  and  had  realized  my  sur- 
roundings, its  returns  were  at  longer  and  longer 
intervals. 

The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  go  round  to  the 
Kursaal.  The  Hospital  was  being  evacuated,  the 
wounded  were  lying  about  everywhere  on  the  ter- 
races and  galleries,  waiting  for  the  ambulances. 
Williams  and  Fisher  and  the  other  man  were  no- 
where to  be  seen.  I  was  told  that  their  ward  had 
been  cleared  out  first,  and  that  the  three  were  now 
safe  on  their  way  to  England. 

I  went  away  very  grieved  that  they  had  not  got 
their  money. 

At  the  Hotel  I  find  the  Commandant  very  cheer- 
ful. He  has  made  Miss his  Secretary  and  Re- 
porter till  my  return.1 

He  goes  down  to  the  quay  to  make  arrangements 
for  my  transport  and  returns  after  some  consider- 

I 1  saw  nothing  sinister  about  this  arrangement  at  the  time. 
It  seemed  incredible  to  me  that  I  should  not  return. 


274       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

able  time.  There  have  been  difficulties  about  this 
detail.  And  the  Commandant  has  an  abhorrence  of 
details,  even  of  easy  ones. 

He  comes  back.  He  looks  abstracted.  I  in- 
quire, a  little  too  anxiously,  perhaps,  about  my  trans- 
port. It  is  all  right,  all  perfectly  right.  He  has 
arranged  with  Dr.  Beavis  of  the  British  Field  Hos- 
pital to  take  me  on  his  ship. 

He  looks  "a  little  spent  with  his  exertions,  and 
as  he  has  again  become  abstracted  I  forbear  to  press 
for  more  information  at  the  moment. 

We  breakfasted.  Presently  I  ask  him  the  name 
of  Dr.  Beavis's  ship. 

Oh,  the  name  of  the  ship  is  the  Dresden. 

Time  passes.  And  presently,  just  as  he  is  going, 
I  suggest  that  it  would  be  as  well  for  me  to  know 
what  time  the  Dresden  sails. 

This  detail  either  he  never  knew  or  has  forgotten. 
And  there  is  something  about  it,  about  the  nature 
of  stated  times,  as  about  all  things  conventional  and 
mechanical  and  precise,  that  peculiarly  exasperates 
him. 

He  waves  both  hands  in  a  fury  of  nescience  and 
cries,  "  Ask  me  another !  " 

By  a  sort  of  mutual  consent  we  assume  that  the 
Dresden  will  sail  with  Dr.  Beavis  at  ten  o'clock. 
After  all,  it  is  a  very  likely  hour. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       275 

More  time  passes.  Finally  we  go  into  the  street 
that  runs  along  the  Digue.  And  there  we  find  Dr. 
Beavis  sitting  in  a  motor-car.  We  approach  him. 
I  thank  him  for  his  kindness  in  giving  me  transport. 
I  say  I'm  sure  his  ship  will  be  crowded  with  his 
own  people,  but  that  I  don't  in  the  least  mind  stand- 
ing in  the  stoke-hole,  if  he  doesn't  mind  taking  me 
over. 

He  looks  at  me  with  a  dreamy  benevolence  mixed 
with  amazement.  He  would  take  me  over  with 
pleasure  if  he  knew  how  he  was  to  get  away  him- 
self. 

"But,"  I  say  to  the  Commandant,  "I  thought 
you  had  arranged  with  Dr.  Beavis  to  take  me  on  the 
Dresden" 

The  Commandant  says  nothing.  And  Dr.  Beavis 
smiles  again.  A  smile  of  melancholy  knowledge. 

"  The  Dresden,"  he  says,  "  sailed  two  hours  ago." 

So  it  is  decided  that  I  am  to  proceed  with  the 
Ambulance  to  Dunkirk,  thence  by  train  to  Boulogne, 
thence  to  Folkestone.  It  sounds  so  simple  that  I 
wonder  why  we  didn't  think  of  it  before. 

But  it  was  not  by  any  means  so  simple  as  it 
sounded. 

First  of  all  we  had  to  collect  ourselves.  Then 
we  had  to  collect  Dr.  Hanson's  luggage.  Dr.  Han- 
son was  one  of  Mrs.  St.  Clair  Stobart's  women  sur- 


276      A  JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

geons,  and  she  had  left  her  luggage  for  Miss 

to  carry  from  Ostend  to  England.  There  was  a 
yellow  tin  box  and  a  suit-case.  Dr.  Hanson's  best 
clothes  and  her  cases  of  surgical  instruments  were 
in  the  suit-case  and  all  the  things  she  didn't 
particularly  care  about  in  the  tin  box.  Or  else  the 
best  clothes  and  the  surgical  instruments  were  in 
the  tin  box,  and  the  things  she  didn't  particularly 
care  about  in  the  suit-case.  As  we  were  certainly 
going  to  take  both  boxes,  it  didn't  seem  to  matter 
much  which  way  round  it  was. 

Then  there  was  Mr.  Foster's  green  canvas  kit- 
bag  to  be  taken  to  Folkestone  and  sent  to  him  at 
the  Victoria  Hospital  there. 

And  there  was  a  British  Red  Cross  lady  and  her 
luggage  —  but  we  didn't  know  anything  about  the 
lady  and  her  luggage  yet. 

We  found  them  at  the  Kursaal  Hospital,  where 
some  of  our  ambulances  were  waiting. 

By  this  time  the  courtyard,  the  steps  and  terraces 
of  the  Hospital  were  a  scene  of  the  most  ghastly 
confusion.  The  wounded  were  still  being  carried 
out  and  still  lay,  wrapped  in  blankets,  on  the  ter- 
races; those  who  could  sit  or  stand  sat  or  stood. 
Ambulance  cars  jostled  each  other  in  the  courtyard. 
Red  Cross  nurses  dressed  for  departure  were 
grouped  despairingly  about  their  luggage.  Other 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       277 

nurses,  who  were  not  dressed  for  departure,  who 
still  remained  superintending  the  removal  of  their 
wounded,  paid  no  attention  to  these  groups  and  their 
movements  and  their  cries.  The  Hospital  had  cast 
off  all  care  for  any  but  its  wounded. 

Women  seized  hold  of  other  women  for  guidance 
and  instruction,  and  received  none.  Nobody  was 
rudely  shaken  off  —  they  were  all,  in  fact,  very  kind 
to  each  other  —  but  nobody  had  time  or  ability  to 
attend  to  anybody  else. 

Somebody  seized  hold  of  the  Commandant  and 
sent  us  both  off  to  look  for  the  kitchen  and  for  a 
sack  of  loaves  which  we  would  find  in  it.  We  were 
to  bring  the  sack  of  loaves  out  as  quickly  as  we 
could.  We  went  off  and  found  the  kitchen,  we 
found  several  kitchens ;  but  we  couldn't  find  the  sack 
of  loaves,  and  had  to  go  back  without  it.  When 
we  got  back  the  lady  who  had  commandeered  the 
sack  of  loaves  was  no  more  to  be  seen  on  the  terrace. 

While  we  waited  on  the  steps  somebody  remarked 
that  there  was  a  German  aeroplane  in  the  sky  and 
that  it  was  going  to  drop  a  bomb.  There  was.  It 
was  sailing  high  over  the  houses  on  the  other  side 
of  the  street.  And  it  dropped  its  bomb  right  in 
front  of  us,  above  an  enormous  building  not  fifty 
yards  away. 

We  looked,  fascinated.     We  expected  to  see  the 


278       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

building  knocked  to  bits  and  flying  in  all  directions. 
The  bomb  fell.  And  nothing  happened.  Nothing 
at  all. 

It  was  soon  after  the  bomb  that  my  attention  was 
directed  to  the  lady.  She  was  a  British  Red  Cross 
nurse,  stranded  with  a  hold-all  and  a  green  canvas 
trunk,  and  most  particularly  forlorn.  She  had  lost 
her  friends,  she  had  lost  her  equanimity,  she  had 
lost  everything  except  her  luggage.  How  she  at- 
tached herself  to  us  I  do  not  know.  The  Com- 
mandant says  it  was  I  who  made  myself  responsible 
for  her  safety.  We  couldn't  leave  her  to  the  Ger- 
mans with  her  green  canvas  trunk  and  her  hold- 
all. 

So  I  heaved  up  one  end  of  the  canvas  trunk,  and 
the  Commandant  tore  it  from  me  and  flung  it  to 
the  chauffeurs,  who  got  it  and  the  hold-all  into 
Bert's  ambulance.  I  grasped  the  British  Red  Cross 
lady  firmly  by  the  arm,  lest  she  should  get  adrift 
again,  and  hustled  her  along  to  the  Hotel,  where 
the  yellow  tin  box  and  the  suit-case  and  the  kit-bag1 
waited.  Somebody  got  them  into  the  ambulance 
somehow. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Ursula  Dearmer  appeared. 
(She  had  put  up  at  some  other  hotel  with  Mrs. 
Lambert. ) 

My  British  Red  Cross  lady  was  explaining  to  me 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       279 

that  she  had  by  no  means  abandoned  her  post,  but 
that  she  was  doing  the  right  thing  in  leaving  Ostend, 
seeing  that  she  meant  to  apply  for  another  post  on 
a  hospital  ship.  She  was  sure,  she  said,  she  was 
doing  the  right  thing.  I  said,  as  I  towed  her  se- 
curely along  by  one  hand  through  a  gathering  crowd 
of  refugees  (we  were  now  making  for  the  ambu- 
lance cars  that  were  drawn  up  along  the  street  by 
the  Digue),  I  said  I  was  equally  sure  she  was  do- 
ing the  right  thing  and  that  nobody  could  possibly 
think  otherwise. 

And,  as  I  say,  Ursula  Dearmer  appeared. 

The  youngest  but  one  was  seated  with  Mr.  Riley 
in  the  military  scouting-car  that  was  to  be  our  con- 
voy to  Dunkirk.  I  do  not  know  how  it  had  hap- 
pened, but  in  this  hour,  at  any  rate,  she  had  taken 
over  the  entire  control  and  command  of  the  Am- 
bulance; and  this  with  a  coolness  and  competence 
that  suggested  that  it  was  no  new  thing.  It  sug- 
gested, also,  that  without  her  we  should  not  have 
got  away  from  Ostend  before  the  Germans  marched 
into  it.  In  fact,  it  is  hardly  fair  to  say  that  she 
had  taken  everything  over.  Everything  had  lapsed 
into  her  hands  at  the  supreme  crisis  by  a  sort  of 
natural  fitness. 

We  were  all  ready  to  go.  The  only  one  we  yet 
waited  for  was  the  Commandant,  who  presently 


280       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

emerged  from  the  Hotel.  In  his  still  dreamy  and 
abstracted  movements  he  was  pursued  by  an  ex- 
cited waiter  flourishing  a  bill.  I  forgot  whose  bill 
it  was  (it  may  have  been  mine),  but  anyhow  it 
wasn't  his  bill. 

We  may  have  thought  we  were  following  the 
retreat  of  the  Belgian  Army  when  we  went  from 
Ghent  to  Bruges.  We  were,  in  fact,  miles  behind 
it,  and  the  regiments  we  overtook  were  stragglers. 
The  whole  of  the  Belgian  Army  seemed  to  be  poured 
out  on  to  that  road  between  Ostend  and  Dunkirk. 
Sometimes  it  was  going  before  us,  sometimes  it 
was  mysteriously  coming  towards  us,  sometimes 
it  was  stationary,  but  always  it  was  there.  It  cov- 
ered the  roads;  we  had  to  cut  our  way  through  it. 
It  was  retreating  slowly,  as  if  in  leisure,  with  a 
firm,  unhasting  dignity. 

Every  now  and  then,  as  we  looked  at  the  men, 
they  smiled  at  us,  with  a  curious  still  and  tragic 
smile. 

And  it  is  by  that  smile  that  I  shall  always  re- 
member the  look  of  the  Belgian  Army  in  the  great 
retreat. 

Our  own  retreat  —  the  Ostend-Dunkirk  bit  of 

it  —  is  memorable  chiefly  by  Miss  's  account 

of  the  siege  of  Antwerp  and  the  splendid  courage  of 
Mrs.  St.  Clair  Stobart  and  her  women. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       28l 

But  that  is  her  story,  not  mine,  and  it  should  b« 
left  to  her  to  tell. 

[Dunkirk. ] 

AT  Dunkirk  the  question  of  the  Secretary's  trans- 
port again  arose.  It  contended  feebly  with  the 
larger  problem  of  where  and  when  and  how  the 
Corps  was  to  lunch,  things  being  further  compli- 
cated by  the  Commandant's  impending  interview 
with  Baron  de  Broqueville,  the  Belgian  Minister  of 
War.  I  began  to  feel  like  a  large  and  useless  parcel 
which  the  Commandant  had  brought  with  him  in 
sheer  absence  of  mind,  and  was  now  anxious  to 
lose  or  otherwise  get  rid  of.  At  the  same  time  the 
Ambulance  could  not  go  on  for  more  than  three 
days  without  further  funds,  and,  as  the  courier  to 
be  despatched  to  fetch  them,  I  was,  for  the  moment, 
the  most  important  person  in  the  Corps;  and  my 
transport  was  not  a  question  to  be  lightly  set  aside. 

I  was  about  to  solve  the  problem  for  myself  by 
lugging  my  lady  to  the  railway  station,  when 
Ursula  Dearmer  took  us  over  too,  in  her  stride,  as 
inconsiderable  items  of  the  business  before  her.  I 
have  nothing  but  admiration  for  her  handling  of  it. 

We  halted  in  the  main  street  of  Dunkirk  while 
Mr.  Riley  and  the  chauffeurs  unearthed  from  the 
baggage-car  my  hold-all  and  suit-case  and  the  Brit- 


282       A   JOURNAL   OF  IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

ish  Red  Cross  lady's  hold-all  and  trunk  and  Mr. 
Foster's  kit-bag  and  Dr.  Hanson's  suit-case  with 
her  best  clothes  and  her  surgical  instruments  and 
the  tin  —  No,  not  the  tin  box,  for  the  Commandant, 
now  possessed  by  a  violent  demon  of  hurry,  re- 
sisted our  efforts  to  drag  it  from  its  lair.1 

All  these  things  were  piled  on  Ursula  Dearmer's 
military  scouting-car.  The  British  Red  Cross  lady 
(almost  incredulous  of  her  good  luck)  and  I  got 
inside  it,  and  Ursula  Dearmer  and  Mr.  Riley  drove 
us  to  the  railway  station. 

By  the  mercy  of  Heaven  a  train  was  to  leave  for 
Boulogne  either  a  little  before  or  a  little  after  one, 
and  we  had  time  to  catch  it. 

There  was  a  long  line  of  refugee  bourgeois  drawn 
up  before  the  station  doors,  and  I  noticed  that  every 
one  of  them  carried  in  his  hand  a  slip  of  paper. 

Ursula  Dearmer  hailed  a  porter,  who,  she  said, 
would  look  after  us  like  a  father.  With  a  match- 
less celerity  he  and  Mr.  Riley  tore  down  the  pile 
of  luggage.  The  porter  put  them  on  a  barrow  and 
disappeared  with  them  very  swiftly  through  the 
station  doors. 

At  least  I  suppose  it  was  through  the  doors.  All 
we  knew  was  that  he  disappeared. 

1  Having  saved  the  suit-case,  I  guarded  it  as  a  sacred  thing. 
But  Dr.  Hanson's  best  clothes  and  her  surgical  instruments 
were  in  the  tin  box  after  all. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       283 

Then  Ursula  Dearmer  handed  over  to  me  three 
cables  to  be  sent  from  Dunkirk.  I  said  good-bye 
to  her  and  Mr.  Riley.  They  got  back  into  the 
motor-car,  and  they,  too,  very  swiftly  disappeared. 

Mr.  Riley  went  away  bearing  with  him  the  baf- 
fling mystery  of  his  personality.  After  nearly 
three  weeks'  association  with  him  I  know  that  Mr. 
Riley 's  whole  heart  is  in  his  job  of  carrying  the 
wounded.  Beyond  that  I  know  no  more  of  him 
than  on  the  day  when  he  first  turned  up  before  our 
Committee. 

But  with  Ursula  Dearmer  it  is  different.  Be- 
fore the  Committee  she  appeared  as  a  very  young 
girl,  docile,  diffident,  only  half -a  wake,  and  of  du- 
bious efficiency.  I  remember  my  solemn  pledges  to 
her  mother  that  Ursula  Dearmer  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  go  into  danger,  and  how,  if  danger  insisted 
on  coming  to  her,  she  should  be  violently  packed 
up  and  sent  home.  I  remember  thinking  what  a 
nuisance  Ursula  Dearmer  will  be,  and  how,  when 
things  are  just  beginning  to  get  interesting,  I  shall 
be  told  off  to  see  her  home. 

And  Ursula  Dearmer,  the  youngest  but  one,  has 
gone,  not  at  all  docilely  and  diffidently,  into  the 
greatest  possible  danger,  and  come  out  of  it.  And 
here  she  is,  wide  awake  and  in  full  command  of  the 
Ostend-Dunkirk  expedition.  And  instead  of  my 


284       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN   BELGIUM 

seeing  her  off  and  all  the  way  home,  she  is  very 
thoroughly  and  competently  seeing  me  off. 

At  least  this  was  her  beautiful  intention. 

But  getting  out  of  France  in  war-time  is  not  a 
simple  matter. 

When  we  tried  to  follow  the  flight  of  our  luggage 
through  the  station  door  we  were  stopped  by  a 
sentry  with  a  rifle.  We  produced  our  passports. 
They  were  not  enough. 

At  the  sight  of  us  brought  to  halt  there,  all  the 
refugees  began  to  agitate  their  slips  of  paper.  And 
on  the  slips  we  read  the  words  "  Laissez-passer." 

My  British  Red  Cross  lady  had  no  "  laissez- 
passer."  I  had  only  my  sixteenth  part  in  the 
"  laissez-passer "  of  the  Corps,  and  that,  hidden 
away  in  the  Commandant's  breast-pocket,  was  a 
part  either  of  the  luncheon-party  or  of  the  inter- 
view with  the  Belgian  Minister  of  War. 

We  couldn't  get  military  passes,  for  military 
passes  take  time;  and  the  train  was  due  in  about 
fifteen  minutes. 

And  the  fatherly  porter  had  vanished,  taking  with 
him  the  secret  of  our  luggage. 

It  was  a  fatherly  old  French  gentleman  who  ad- 
vised us  to  go  to  the  British  Consulat.  And  it  was 
a  fatherly  old  French  cocker  who  drove  us  there, 
or  rather  who  drove  us  through  interminable  twisted 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       285 

streets  and  into  blind  alleys  and  out  of  them  till 
we  got  there. 

As  for  our  luggage,  we  renounced  it  and  Mr. 
Foster's  and  Dr.  Hanson's  luggage  in  the  interests 
of  our  own  safety. 

At  last  we  got  to  the  British  Consulat.  Only  I 
think  the  cocker  took  us  to  the  Town  Hall  and  the 
Hospital  and  the  British  Embassy  and  the  Admiralty 
offices  first. 

At  intervals  during  this  transit  the  British  Red 
Cross  lady  explained  again  that  she  was  doing  the 
right  thing  in  leaving  Ostend.  It  wasn't  as  if  she 
was  leaving  her  post,  she  was  going  on  a  hospi- 
tal ship.  She  was  sure  she  had  done  the  right 
thing. 

It  was  not  for  me  to  be  unsympathetic  to  an  ob- 
session produced  by  a  retreat,  so  I  assured  her  again 
and  again  that  if  there  ever  was  a  right  thing  she 
had  done  it.  My  heart  bled  for  this  poor  lady, 
abandoned  by  the  organization  that  had  brought  her 
out. 

In  the  courtyard  of  the  Consulat  we  met  a  stal- 
wart man  in  khaki,  who  smiled  as  a  god  might 
smile  at  our  trouble,  and  asked  us  why  on  earth 
we  hadn't  got  a  passage  on  the  naval  transport 
Victoria,  sailing  at  three  o'clock.  We  said  nothing 
would  have  pleased  us  better,  only  we  had  never 


286       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

heard  of  the  Victoria  and  her  sailing.  And  he  took 
us  to  the  Consul,  and  the  Consul  —  who  must  have 
been  buried  alive  in  detail  —  gave  us  a  letter  to 
Captain  King  of  the  Victoria,  and  the  cocker  drove 
us  to  the  dock. 

Captain  King  was  an  angel.  He  was  the  head  of 
a  whole  hierarchy  of  angels  who  called  themselves 
ship's  officers. 

There  is  no  difficulty  about  our  transport.  But 
we  must  be  at  the  docks  by  half-past  two. 

We  have  an  hour  before  us ;  so  we  drive  back  to 
the  station  to  see  if,  after  all,  we  can  find  that  lug- 
gage. Not  that  we  in  the  least  expected  to  find  it, 
for  we  had  been  told  that  it  had  gone  on  by  the 
train  to  Boulogne. 

Now  the  British  Red  Cross  lady  declared  many 
times  that  but  for  me  and  my  mastery  of  the  French 
language  she  would  never  have  got  out  of  Dunkirk. 
And  it  was  true  that  I  looked  on  her  more  as  a 
sacred  charge  than  as  a  valuable  ally  in  the  struggle 
with  French  sentries,  porters  and  officials.  As  for 
the  cocker,  I  didn't  consider  him  valuable  at  all, 
even  as  the  driver  of  an  ancient  fiacre.  And  yet 
it  was  the  lady  and  the  cocker  who  found  the  lug- 
gage. It  seems  that  the  station  hall  is  open  between 
trains,  and  they  had  simply  gone  into  the  hall  and 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM      287 

seen  it  there,  withdrawn  bashfully  into  a  corner. 
The  cocker's  face  as  he  announces  his  discovery; 
makes  the  War  seem  a  monstrous  illusion.  It  is 
incredible  that  anything  so  joyous  should  exist  in 
a  country  under  German  invasion. 

We  drive  again  to  the  Victoria  in  her  dock.  The 
stewards  run  about  and  do  things  for  us.  They 
give  us  lunch.  They  give  us  tea.  And  the  other 
officers  come  in  and  make  large,  simple  jokes  about 
bombs  and  mines  and  submarines.  We  have  the 
ship  all  to  ourselves  except  for  a  few  British  sol- 
diers, recruits  sent  out  to  Antwerp  too  soon  and 
sent  back  again  for  more  training. 

They  looked,  poor  boys,  far  sadder  than  the  Bel- 
gian Army. 

And  I  walk  the  decks;  I  walk  the  decks  till  we 
get  to  Dover.  My  sacred  charge  appears  and  dis- 
appears. Every  now  and  then  I  see  her  engaged  in 
earnest  conversation  with  the  ship's  officers;  and  I 
wonder  whether  she  is  telling  them  that  she  has  not 
really  left  her  post  and  that  she  is  sure  she  has  done 
right.  I  am  no  longer  concerned  about  my  own 
post,  for  I  feel  so  sure  that  I  am  going  back  to  it. 

To-morrow  I  shall  get  the  money  from  our  Com- 
mittee ;  and  on  Thursday  I  shall  go  back. 

And  yet  —  and  yet  —  I  must  have  had  a  pre- 


288       A  JOURNAL  OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

monition.  We  are  approaching  England.  I  can 
see  the  white  cliffs. 

And  I  hate  the  white  cliffs.  I  hate  them  with  a 
sudden  and  mysterious  hatred. 

More  especially  I  hate  the  cliffs  of  Dover.  For 
it  is  there  that  we  must  land.  I  should  not  have 
thought  it  possible  to  hate  the  white  coast  of  my  own 
country  when  she  is  at  war. 

And  now  I  know  that  I  hate  it  because  it  is  not 
the  coast  of  Flanders.  Which  would  be  absurd  if 
I  were  really  going  back  again. 

Yes,  I  must  have  had  a  premonition. 

[Dover."] 

WE  have  landed  now.  I  have  said  good-bye  to 
Captain  King  and  all  the  ship's  officers  and  thanked 
them  for  their  kindness.  I  have  said  good-bye  to 
the  British  Red  Cross  lady,  who  is  not  going  to 
London. 

And  I  go  to  the  station  telegraph-office  to  send 
off  five  wires. 

I  am  sending  off  the  five  wires  when  I  hear  feet 
returning  through  the  station  hall.  The  Red  Cross 
lady  is  back  again.  She  is  saying  this  time  that  she 
is  really  sure  she  has  done  the  right  thing. 

And  again  I  assure  her  that  she  has. 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       289 

Well  —  there  are  obsessions  and  obsessions.  I 
do  not  know  whether  I  have  done  the  right  thing  or 
not  in  leaving  Flanders  (or,  for  that  matter,  in 
leaving  Ghent).  All  that  I  know  is  that  I  love  it 
and  that  I  have  left  it.  And  that  I  want  to  go  back. 


POSTSCRIPT 

THERE  have  been  changes  in  that  Motor  Field  Am- 
bulance Corps  that  set  out  for  Flanders  on  the  25th  of 
September,  1914. 

Its  Commandant  has  gone  from  it  to  join  the  Royal 
Army  Medical  Corps.  A  few  of  the  original  volun- 
teers have  dropped  out  and  others  have  taken  their 
places,  and  it  is  larger  now  than  it  was,  and  better  or- 
ganized. 

But  whoever  went  and  whoever  stayed,  its  four  field- 
women  have  remained  at  the  Front.  Two  of  them  are 
attached  to  the  Third  Division  of  the  Belgian  Army; 
all  four  have  distinguished  themselves  by  their  devo- 
tion to  that  Army  and  by  their  valour,  and  they  have 
all  received  the  Order  of  Leopold  II.,  the  highest  Bel- 
gian honour  ever  given  to  women. 

The  Commandant,  being  a  man,  has  the  Order  of 
Leopold  I.  Mr.  Ashmead-Bartlett  and  Mr.  Philip 
Gibbs  and  Dr.  Souttar  have  described  his  heroic  ac- 
tion at  the  Battle  of  Dixmude  on  the  22nd  of  October, 
1914,  when  he  went  into  the  cellars  of  the  burning  and 
toppling  Town  Hall  to  rescue  the  wounded.  And 
from  that  day  to  this  the  whole  Corps  —  old  volunteers 
and  new  —  has  covered  itself  with  glory. 

On  our  two  chauffeurs,  Tom  and  Bert,  the  glory  lies 
quite  thick.  "  Tom  "  (if  I  may  quote  from  my  own 
story  of  the  chauffeurs)  "  Tom  was  in  the  battle  of 
Dixmude.  At  the  order  of  his  commandant  he  drove 
his  car  straight  into  the  thick  of  it,  over  the  ruins  of 
a  shattered  house  that  blocked  the  way.  He  waited 

291 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

with  his  car  while  all  the  bombs  that  he  had  ever 
dreamed  of  crashed  around  him,  and  houses  flamed, 
and  tottered  and  fell.  '  Pretty  warm,  ain't  it  ? '  was 
Tom's  comment. 

"  Four  days  later  he  was  waiting  at  Oudekappele 
with  his  car  when  he  heard  that  the  Hospital  of  Saint- 
Jean  at  Dixmude  was  being  shelled  and  that  the  Bel- 
gian military  man  who  had  been  sent  with  a  motor-car 
to  carry  off  the  wounded  had  been  turned  back  by  the 
fragment  of  a  shell  that  dropped  in  front  of  him. 
Tom  thereupon  drove  into  Dixmude  to  the  Hospital  of 
Saint- Jean  and  removed  from  it  two  wounded  soldiers 
and  two  aged  and  paralysed  civilians  who  had  shel- 
tered there,  and  brought  them  to  Furnes.  The  mili- 
tary ambulance  men  then  followed  his  lead,  and  the 
Hospital  was  emptied.  That  evening  it  was  destroyed 
by  a  shell. 

"  And  Bert  —  it  was  Bert  who  drove  his  ambulance 
into  Kams-Kappele  to  the  barricade  by  the  railway. 
It  was  Bert  who  searched  in  a  shell-hole  to  pick  out 
three  wounded  from  among  thirteen  dead;  who  with 
the  help  of  a  Belgian  priest,  carried  the  three  several 
yards  to  his  car,  under  fire,  and  who  brought  them  in 
safety  to  Furnes." 

And  the  others,  the  brave  "  Chaplain,"  and  "  Mr. 
Riley,"  and  "  Mr.  Lambert,"  have  also  proved  them- 
selves. 

But  when  I  think  of  the  Corps  it  is  chiefly  of  the 
four  field- women  that  I  think  —  the  two  "  women  of 
Pervyse,"  and  the  other  two  who  joined  them  at  their 
dangerous  paste. 

Both  at  Furnes  and  Pervyse  they  worked  all  night, 
looking  after  their  wounded;  sometimes  sleeping  on 


A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM       293 

straw  in  a  room  shared  by  the  Belgian  troops,  when 
there  was  no  other  shelter  for  them  in  the  bombarded 
town.  One  of  them  has  driven  a  heavy  ambulance 
car  —  in  a  pitch-black  night,  along  a  road  raked  by 
shell-fire,  and  broken  here  and  there  into  great  pits  — 
to  fetch  a  load  of  wounded,  a  performance  that  would 
have  racked  the  nerves  of  any  male  chauffeur  ever 
born.  She  has  driven  the  same  car,  alone,  with  five 
German  prisoners  for  her  passengers.  The  four 
women  served  at  Pervyse  (the  town  nearest  to  the 
firing-line)  in  "  Mrs.  Torrence's  "  dressing-station  — 
a  cellar  only  twenty  yards  behind  the  Belgian  trenches. 
In  that  cellar,  eight  feet  square  and  lighted  and  venti- 
lated only  by  a  slit  in  the  wall,  two  lived  for  three 
weeks,  sleeping  on  straw,  eating  what  they  could  get, 
drinking  water  that  had  passed  through  a  cemetery 
where  nine  hundred  Germans  are  buried.  They  had 
to  burn  candles  night  and  day.  Here  the  wounded 
were  brought  as  they  fell  in  the  trenches,  and  were 
tended  until  the  ambulance  came  to  take  them  to  the 
base  hospital  at  Furnes. 

Day  in,  day  out,  and  all  night  long,  with  barely  an 
interval  for  a  wash  or  a  change  of  clothing,  the  women 
stayed  on,  the  two  always,  and  the  four  often,  till  the 
engineers  built  them  a  little  hut  for  a  dressing-sta- 
tion; they  stayed  till  the  Germans  shelled  them  out 
of  their  little  hut. 

This  is  only  a  part  of  what  they  have  done.  The 
finest  part  will  never  be  known,  for  it  was  done  in  soli- 
tary places  and  in  the  dark,  when  special  correspond- 
ents are  asleep  in  their  hotels.  There  was  no  lime- 
light on  the  road  between  Dixmude  and  Furnes,  or 
among  the  blood  and  straw  in  the  cellar  at  Pervyse. 


294       A   JOURNAL   OF   IMPRESSIONS   IN    BELGIUM 

And  Miss  Ashley-Smith  (who  is  now  Mrs.  Mo 
Dougall) — her  escape  from  Ghent  (when  she  had  no 
more  to  do  there)  was  as  heroic  as  her  return. 

Since  then  she  has  gone  back  to  the  Front  and  done 
splendid  service  in  her  own  Corps,  the  First  Aid  Nurs- 
ing Yeomanry. 

M.  S. 

July  15th,  1915. 


THE  END 


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the  fact  that  so  many  Americans  are  her  reading  friends." — Kansas 
City  Gazette-Globe. 

"  They  are  the  product  of  a  master  workman  who  has  both  skill  and 
art,  and  who  scorns  to  produce  less  than  the  best." — Buffalo  Express. 

"Always  a  clever  writer,  Miss  Sinclair  at  her  best  is  an  exceptionally 
interesting  one,  and  in  several  of  the  tales  bound  together  in  this  new 
volume  we  have  her  at  her  best." — N.  ¥.  Times, 

"...  All  of  which  show  the  same  sensitive  apprehension  of  un- 
usual cases  and  delicate  relations,  and  reveal  a  truth'which  would  be 
hidden  from  the  hasty  or  blunt  observer." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  One  of  the  best  of  the  many  collections  of  stories  published  this 
season." — N.  Y.  Sun. 

"  .  .  .  All  these  stories  are  of  deep  interest  because  all  of  them  are 
out  of  the  rut." — Kentucky  Post. 

"  Let  no  one  who  cares  for  good  and  sincere  work  neglect  this  book." 

— London  Post. 

"The stories  are  touched  with  a  peculiar  delicacy  and  whimsicality." 

— Los  Angeles  Times. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

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BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

The  Three  Sisters 

BY  MAY  SINCLAIR 

Author  of  "  The  Divine  Fire,"  "  The  Return  of  the  Prodigal,"  etc. 

Cloth,  lamo, 


Every  reader  of  "  The  Divine  Fire,"  in  fact  every  reader  of  any  of  Miss 
Sinclair's  books,  will  at  once  accord  her  unlimited  praise  for  her  character  work. 
"  The  Three  Sisters "  reveals  her  at  her  best  It  is  a  story  of  temperament, 
made  evident  not  through  tiresome  analyses  but  by  means  of  a  series  of  dra- 
matic incidents.  The  sisters  of  the  title  represent  three  distinct  types  of  woman- 
kind. In  their  reaction  under  certain  conditions  Miss  Sinclair  is  not  only 
telling  a  story  of  tremendous  interest  but  she  is  really  showing  a  cross  section 
of  life. 

"  Once  again  Miss  Sinclair  has  shown  us  that  among  the  women  writers  to- 
day she  can  be  acclaimed  as  without  rival  in  the  ability  to  draw  a  character 
and  to  suggest  atmosphere.  ...  In  "  The  Three  Sisters  "  she  gives  full  meas- 
ure of  her  qualities.  It  is  in  every  way  ,a  characteristic  novel."  —  London 
Standard. 

"  Miss  Sinclair's  singular  power  as  an  artist  lies  in  her  identification  with 
nature.  .  .  .  She  has  seldom  written  a  more  moving  story." —  Metropolitan. 

"  It  is  a  book  powerful  alike  in  its  description  of  the  background  and  in  its 
analysis  of  character.  .  .  .  This  story  confirms  the  impression  of  her  unusual 
ability."  —  Outlook. 

"  Miss  Sinclair's  most  important  book."  —  Reedy 's  Mirror. 

" '  The  Three  Sisters '  is  a  powerful  novel,  written  with  both  vigor  and 
delicacy,  dramatic,  absorbingly  interesting."  —  New  York  Times. 


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The  Pentecost  of  Calamity 


BY  OWEN  WISTER 

Author  of  "  The  Virginian,"  etc. 

Boards,  i6mo,  50  cents 

The  author  of  "  The  Virginian  "  has  written  a  new  book  which  describes, 
more  forcibly  and  clearly  than  any  other  account  so  far  published,  the 
meaning,  to  America,  of  the  tragic  changes  which  are  taking  place  in  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  the  German  people. 

Written  with  ease  and  charm  of  style,  it  is  prose  that  holds  the  reader 
for  its  very  beauty,  even  as  it  impresses  him  with  its  force.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  there  will  come  out  of  the  entire  mass  of  war  literature  a  more 
understanding  or  suggestive  survey. 

"  Owen  Wister  has  depicted  the  tragedy  of  Germany  and  has  hinted  at  the  possible 
tragedy  of  the  United  States.  .  .  .  We  wish  it  could  be  read  in  full  by  every  American." 

—  The  Outlook. 

The  Military  Unpreparedness  of  the  United 

States 

BY  FREDERIC  L.  HUIDEKOPER 

Cloth,  8vo 

By  many  army  officers  the  author  of  this  work  is  regarded  as  the  fore- 
most military  expert  in  the  United  States.  For  nine  years  he  has  been 
striving  to  awaken  the  American  people  to  a  knowledge  of  the  weaknesses 
of  their  land  forces  and  the  defencelessness  of  the  country.  Out  of  his  ex- 
tensive study  and  research  he  has  compiled  the  present  volume,  which 
represents  the  last  word  on  this  subject.  It  comes  at  a  time  when  its  im- 
portance cannot  be  overestimated,  and  in  the  eight  hundred  odd  pages 
given  over  to  the  discussion  there  are  presented  facts  and  arguments  with 
which  every  citizen  should  be  familiar.  Mr.  Huidekoper's  writings  in  this 
field  are  already  well  known.  These  hitherto,  however,  have  been  largely 
confined  to  magazines  and  pamphlets,  but  his  book  deals  with  the  matters 
under  consideration  with  that  frankness  and  authority  evidenced  in  these 
previous  contributions  and  much  more  comprehensively. 


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AN   IMPORTANT   NEW  WORK 

7 

With  the  Russian  Army 

BY  COL.  ROBERT  McCORMICK 

Illustrated,  8vo 

This  book  deals  with  the  author's  experiences  in  the 
war  area.  The  work  traces  the  cause  of  the  war  from 
the  treaty  of  1878  through  the  Balkan  situation.  It 
contains  many  facts  drawn  from  personal  observation, 
for  Col.  McCormick  has  had  opportunities  such  as  have 
been  given  to  no  other  man  during  the  present  engage- 
ments. He  has  been  at  the  various  headquarters  and 
actually  in  the  trenches.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
chapters  of  the  volume  is  the  concluding  one  dealing 
with  great  personalities  of  the  war  from  first-hand 
acquaintance. 

The  work  contains  a  considerable  amount  of  material 
calculated  to  upset  generally  accepted  ideas,  compari- 
sons of  the  fighting  forces,  and  much  else  that  is  fresh 
and  original. 


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The  World  War: 

How  it  Looks  to  the  Nations  Involved  and  What  it  Means  to  Us 

BY  ELBERT  FRANCIS   BALDWIN 

Decorated  cloth,  izmo, 


The  present  war  in  Europe  has  called  forth  a  great  many 
books  bearing  on  its  different  phases,  but  in  the  majority  of 
instances  these  have  been  written  from  the  standpoint  of  some 
one  of  the  nations.  Elbert  Francis  Baldwin  has  here,  how- 
ever, brought  together  within  the  compass  of  a  single  volume 
a  survey  of  the  entire  field. 

Mr.  Baldwin  was  in  Europe  at  the  outbreak  of  hostilities. 
He  mingled  with  the  people,  observing  their  spirit  and  tem- 
per more  intimately  than  it  has  been  permitted  most  writers 
to  do,  and  in  consequence  the  descriptions  which  he  gives  of 
the  German,  or  French,  or  English,  or  Russian  attitude  are 
truer  and  more  complete  than  those  found  in  previous  studies 
of  the  war.  Mr.  Baldwin's  statements  are  calm  and  just  in 
conclusion.  When  discussing  the  German  side  he  has  in- 
cluded all  of  the  factors  which  the  Germans  think  important, 
and  assimilated  wholly  the  German  feeling,  as  he  has  done  in 
his  considerations  of  the  other  countries. 

"  The  one  indispensable  volume  so  far  published  for  those  who  desire  a 
comprehensive  survey  of  the  situation.  .  .  .  One  of  the  most  valuable 
contributions  to  the  literature  of  the  World  War."  —  Portland  Express. 

"  The  dramatic  story  ...  is  unusually  calm  and  dispassionate,  after  the 
modern  historical  manner,  with  a  great  deal  of  fresh  information." 

—  Philadelphia  North  American. 

"  Sets  down  without  bias  the  real  causes  of  the  Great  War." 

—  New  York  Times. 


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Russia  and  the  World 


BY  STEPHEN  GRAHAM 

Author  of"  With  the  Russian  Pilgrims  to  Jerusalem,"  "  With  Poor  Immi- 
grants to  America,"  etc. 

Illustrated,  cloth,  8vo,  $2.00 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  present  European  war  Mr.  Graham  was 
in  Russia,  and  his  book  opens,  therefore,  with  a  description  of  the 
way  the  news  of  war  was  received  on  the  Chinese  frontier,  one 
thousand  miles  from  a  railway  station,  where  he  happened  to  be 
when  the  Tsar's  summons  came.  Following  this  come  other  chap- 
ters on  Russia  and  the  War,  considering  such  questions  as,  Is  It  a 
Last  War  ?,  Why  Russia  Is  Fighting,  The  Economic  Isolation  of 
Russia,  An  Aeroplane  Hunt  at  Warsaw,  Suffering  Poland :  A  Bel- 
gium of  the  East,  and  The  Soldier  and  the  Cross. 

But  "  Russia  and  the  World  "  is  not  by  any  means  wholly  a  war 
book.  It  is  a  comprehensive  survey  of  Russian  problems.  Inas- 
much as  the  War  is  at  present  one  of  her  problems,  it  receives  its 
due  consideration.  It  has  been,  however,  Mr.  Graham's  intention 
to  supply  the  very  definite  need  that  there  is  for  enlightenment  in 
English  and  American  circles  as  to  the  Russian  nation,  what  its 
people  think  and  feel  on  great  world  matters.  On  almost  every 
country  there  are  more  books  and  more  concrete  information  than 
on  his  chosen  land.  In  fact,  "  Russia  and  the  World  "  may  be  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  very  first  to  deal  with  it  in  any  adequate  fashion. 

"  It  shows  the  author  creeping  as  near  as  he  was  allowed  to  the 
firing  line.  It  gives  broad  views  of  difficult  questions,  like  the  future 
of  the  Poles  and  the  Jews.  It  rises  into  high  politics,  forecasts  the 
terms  of  peace  and  the  rearrangement  of  the  world,  east  and  west, 
that  may  follow.  But  the  salient  thing  in  it  is  its  interpretation  for 
Western  minds  of  the  spirit  of  Russia."  —  London  Times. 


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German  World  Policies 

(Der  Deutsche  Gedanke  in  der  Welt) 
BY  PAUL  ROHRBACH 

Translated  by  DR.  EDMUND  VON  MACH 

Cloth,  izmo, 


Paul  Rohrbach  has  been  for  several  years  the  most  popular 
author  of  books  on  politics  and  economics  in  Germany.  He  is 
described  by  his  translator  as  a  "  constructive  optimist,"  one  who, 
at  the  same  time,  is  an  incisive  critic  of  those  shortcomings  which 
have  kept  Germany,  as  he  thinks,  from  playing  the  great  part  to 
which  she  is  called.  In  this  volume  Dr.  Rohrbach  gives  a  true  in- 
sight into  the  character  of  the  German  people,  their  aims,  fears  and 
aspirations. 

Though  it  was  written  before  the  war  started  and  has  not  been 
hastily  put  together,  it  still  possesses  peculiar  significance  now,  for 
in  its  analysis  of  the  German  idea  of  culture  and  its  dissemination, 
in  its  consideration  of  German  foreign  policies  and  moral  conquests, 
it  is  an  important  contribution  to  the  widespread  speculation  now 
current  on  these  matters. 

"  Dr.  von  Mach  renders  an  extraordinary  service  to  his  country 
in  making  known  to  English  readers  at  this  time  a  book  like 
Rohrbach's."  —  New  York  Globe. 

"A  clear  insight  into  Prussian  ideals."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"A  valuable,  significant,  and  most  informing  book." 

—  New  York  Tribune. 


THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

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University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


UL 

SEP  1  4  1991 


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